Investigators’ “suspicion is growing” that Yehuda Sherman, the settler activist who was fatally struck by a car last Saturday near the illegal West Bank outpost where he lived, was killed in a terror attack, the police and Shin Bet announced Thursday.

The circumstances of the incident in which Sherman died have remained unclear. Settler activists and far-right politicians immediately alleged that the incident was a terror attack, but the security services have taken several days to evaluate what happened, with the suspect’s lawyer saying it was a traffic accident.

“According to the findings of the investigative team… which includes the Shin Bet, investigators from the Judea and Samaria District Police, and the IDF, suspicion is growing that this was a deliberate attack on the deceased’s vehicle, motivated by nationalist motives,” the two agencies said in their joint statement.

The statement claimed that the Palestinian suspect who has been arrested and questioned over the incident “admitted to the acts attributed to him,” but added that “the investigation is ongoing.”

A police spokesperson did not immediately clarify what specifically the suspect admitted to police.

Moreover, Palestinians say that such purported confessions are often made while under duress from interrogators.

The suspect has also been barred from meeting with a lawyer since he was arrested on Saturday — a practice that Israel’s military court system allows against Palestinians.

Sherman, a resident of the illegal settlement outpost of Shuva Yisrael Farms in the northern West Bank, close to the settlement of Homesh, was killed on Saturday afternoon........

© The Times of Israel