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HEBRON (AFP) -- An Israeli settler and his 18-month-old son were killed when the man lost control of his car after being hit by stones hurled by Palestinians, Israeli police said Sunday.

"Preliminary results of the investigation lead us to conclude that the father was hit in the head by a stone, which made him lose control of the vehicle," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, adding the crash occurred Friday.

The settler, 25-year-old Israeli-American Asher Palmer, and his son Yonathan lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron in the southern West Bank.

Police had initially ruled out an attack against the car.

On the day of the crash, Palestinians had hurled stones at settlers' vehicles, particularly in the region where the settler and the child were killed.

There were also clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and police in several West Bank localities, the day when the Palestinian leadership officially applied for UN membership for Palestine.

A Palestinian was killed and three others injured that same day near Nablus in the northern West Bank by Israeli army fire in the wake of clashes between Palestinian villagers and Israeli settlers.

At the funeral of Palmer and his son on Sunday in the Jewish cemetery of Hebron where several hundred were gathered, Danny Dayan, a leader of the settlers, accused Israeli authorities of intentionally trying to cover up the cause of the deaths by presenting it as an accident.

Some 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians in the same territory.

All settlements are considered illegal under international law.