Israeli police and Shin Bet security agents were investigating the death of Aisha al-Rawbi, 47, in the West Bank after her husband said he suspected Israeli settlers had pelted their car with rocks early Saturday.
Reuters was unable to verify the circumstances of the incident independently. However, footage of the car, reportedly bearing a Palestinian license plate, showed what appeared to be a blood-stained broken brick at the foot of the passenger seat, which was covered in shattered glass.
Investigators were also looking into the possibility that Rawbi's vehicle was targeted by Palestinian stone-throwers who mistakenly identified the vehicle as belonging to Jews.
A doctor at the Palestinian hospital where Rawbi, a mother of eight, was treated, said the 47-year-old was dead on arrival and that she had suffered a head injury. Her relatives said an autopsy had been ordered.
The woman's husband, Aykube al-Rawbi, 52, said he was driving by a settlement late on Friday after dark along a main road near the Palestinian city of Nablus and that he could not see who pelted the car.
"The stones came from the side where the settlement is. I could hear the people speak Hebrew but I didn't see them," he said.
Other Palestinian eyewitnesses told Palestinian media outlets that a "group of about a 10 settlers" from the adjacent hills had gathered near the junction.
Israeli Police spokesman Chief Insp. Micky Rosenfeld said: "Police arrived in the area and have launched an investigation."
An Israeli court issued a gag order on the details of the inquiry.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that it was "an ugly crime" perpetrated by settlers, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Thousands of relatives and neighbors attended Rabi's funeral later Saturday. Her body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag as grievers carried the coffin to the cemetery.
"With our blood and our spirit we will redeem the martyr," shouted the angry mourners. Aisha's brother, Ibrahim Bolad, said there was no doubt "settlers threw stones at the car."
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, condemned her death.
Last Sunday, Palestinian terrorist Ashraf Walid Suleiman Naalwa, 23, shot dead two Israelis and wounded a third at the Barkan Industrial Park in Samaria. On Thursday, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier in the area.
