A Palestinian man prays at a damaged mosque after it was set ablaze, in the West Bank village of Mghayr near Ramallah November 12, 2014.
A Palestinian man prays at a damaged mosque after it was set ablaze, in the West Bank village of Mghayr near Ramallah November 12, 2014. The Palestinian mosque and an Israeli synagogue were damaged in separate arson attacks, police and local residents said on Wednesday, causing no casualties but stoking tensions that have flared over a contested Jerusalem shrine. Youths entered Mghayr village in the occupied West Bank and set a fire which consumed the ground floor of the mosque before residents put it out, Mayor Faraj Na'asan told Reuters. The Israeli police said it had sent a forensic team and a special "nationalist-crime unit" -- set up last year to counter "price tag" incidents -- to Mghayr, but that angry villagers had prevented them from entering the area. REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini

Three amateur videos have been put up online by Yesh Din human rights group. They show the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers protecting masked Jewish settlers from Yitzhar as they have a face-off with Palestinians at the village of Urif in the West Bank on Tuesday.

The IDF troops did not try to stop Israeli settlers from attacking Palestinian villagers. According to the videos, soldiers are seen pointing guns at Palestinians even as Israelis hurl stones on them from the back. Although IDF soldiers are supposed to protect Palestinians, going by the international law and High Court of Justice rulings, and should keep back suspects, including Israelis, till the police come to the spot, they seem to be doing the opposite. The videos show that at least five armed IDF soldiers just stood among the settlers and even pointed guns at the Palestinians many times, according to rtnews.

Attorney Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, legal advisor to Yesh Din, said that the video footage was disturbing, and called for arrest and prosecution of the soldiers. She felt that it is also important to check out with commanders to see if they took the responsibility or not for the conduct of the soldiers.

Critics point out that the IDF forces should be "objective" and protect the villagers without taking sides, according to abovetopsecret. "But of course, we are talking about the IDF here...and we all know what to expect..." The Israeli settlers' attack on Palestinians followed a few hours of a synagogue in Jerusalem getting attacked, killing five Israelis.

According to the IDF, about 200 Palestinians engaged 50 settlers by throwing stones at a spot between Yitzhar and the Palestinian village of Urif, according to Haaretz. The dispute had already begun even before the soldiers came to the spot, so the IDF said they used gas canisters to scatter the youth. However, the videos have not confirmed this point. The IDF added that no injuries had been reported. However, Yesh Din says that a 13-year-old boy got a wound on his head, and was admitted to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus.

Apart from the stone throwing, Israeli settlers also attacked a Palestinian school in Urif, Ghassan Daghlas. An official in the northern West Bank told Ma'an news agency that IDF forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to injure six Palestinians with "rubber-coated steel bullets."

Watch one of the videos below.

(Credit: YouTube/Yesh Din)