A new video released by human rights group B’Tselem on Wednesday appears to show Israel Defense Forces soldiers standing by as masked settlers throw stones at Palestinians on the outskirts of a West Bank village.
In a press release, B’Tselem accused the IDF of acting as “a security entourage for violent settlers,” during the 50 minute-long incident, which took place on Monday at a construction site on the outskirts of the village of Urif, near Nablus.
In the seven minute video, several masked settlers are seen throwing stones towards the direction of the camera while soldiers stand nearby.
According to the NGO, the settlers approached the village from the direction of the Yitzhar outpost, and proceeded towards a water reservoir being constructed by USAID. They are then alleged to have they smashed an electricity meter and thrown stones towards a family home near the construction site as well as a nearby school.
B’Tselem said the soldiers “took no measures to arrest the settlers, to remove them from the area, or at the very least to put an end to the stone-throwing.”
The group said that the soldiers only took action when Palestinian pupils in the school threw rocks back at the settlers, at which point the soldiers shot tear gas towards them, before their teachers ushered the children back indoors.
Image capture showing the settler’s truck parked next to an IDF jeep
At the end of the video the settlers are seen entering a pickup truck that had been parked next to several IDF jeeps throughout the incident. The settlers do not appear to be phased by the soldiers’ presence.
B’Tselem called upon the army to open an immediate investigation into the incident, and said it had failed in its obligation to protect the Palestinians. It said the soldiers “acted with disregard to their duty to protect the Palestinians: they did not put an end to the violent acts they witnessed, responding only when Palestinians threw stones back at the settlers.
“The soldiers also do not seem to have made any attempt to identify the masked individuals or detain them until the police arrived on the scene, so they could be charged appropriately.”
The IDF Spokesperson’s Office told the Israeli news website Walla that the incident would be investigated, but preliminary investigations indicated that the soldiers had acted improperly. It added that “soldiers are under orders not to enable such hostile actions, and instead are to document them and pass them to the police.”
“I wouldn’t be surprized if one of B’Tselem’s field photographers created the provocation in order to besmirch the IDF and the settler public,” a spokesman for Yitzhar told Ha’aretz. “This is a response to repeated provocations by the residents of Arif in recent days.”
A video released by B’Tselem last year showing an IDF officer hitting a Danish protester with the magazine of his rifle, ended up in the officer being convicted of assault, being discharged from the army and sentenced to community service.
The human rights group has come under much criticism in Israel in recent years, facing charges of collaberating with Israel’s enemies agaist Israeli soldiers. The group famously provided information seen as damaging to Israel to the Goldstone Commission that investigated alleged Israeli war crimes following the 2007 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
Jewish extremists also torched two cars near the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday and scrawled Hebrew graffiti, including the words “Price Tag” on a wall in Madameh village, west of Nablus, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The incident came a day after Palestinians beat and detained around a dozen settlers in Jalud village, south of Nablus, before releasing them.
Palestinian security sources said the settlers, some of whom were masked, were attacked after earlier clashes in the nearby village of Qusra.
Their release was eventually negotiated by Israeli soldiers, an AFP correspondent said.
Price tag attacks against army or Palestinian property were initially in retaliation for state moves to dismantle settler outposts, but have broadened in scope in recent years to become a standard response to anything perceived as anti-Israeli.
The area around Nablus is the scene of frequent clashes between Palestinians and Jewish settlers.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon condemned the attack, saying he sees it a terrorist incident and would use the full force of the law to apprehend the perpetrators.
“The state of Israel cannot allow such foul incidents to be borne out of it — they are illegal, morally abhorrent, sully the character of the entire country and harm the settlers, who for the most part are law abiding citizens,” said Ya’alon. “The state will not allow a violent, fringe groups of extremists to illegally take over land, threaten Palestinian farmers and behave in a way that endangers public security and liable to spark tensions.”
A Palestinian Authority official Ma’an News agency that the Qusra incident sent a message to the settlers to say: “stop your assaults on our children and properties, or otherwise you will pay a toll for your criminal acts.”
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