Of All the War Crimes IDF Carrying Out in Lebanon, Israel Reserves Outrage for Destruction of Jesus Statue
"Israeli soldiers have been posting images of their war crimes and cultural desecration for two and a half years straight without interruption," said one journalist.
The Israel Defense Forces have spent close to two months in Lebanon killing more than 2,100 people, destroying an estimated 1,000 homes—sometimes leveling entire communities—blowing up schools, bombing healthcare infrastructure, and forcibly displacing more than 1 million people, including close to 400,000 children.
But so far, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken out against just one attack on civilian infrastructure—saying on Monday that he condemned "in the strongest terms" an image that went viral over the weekend of an IDF soldier taking a sledgehammer to the head of a statue of Jesus Christ in southern Lebanon.
"Of all the shocking war crimes [Palestinian journalist] Younis Tirawi has exposed, it’s the sledgehammer to a Jesus statue... that finally gets Netanyahu to comment," said Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim, referring to the reporter who posted the image on social media.
Tirawi reported that the statue belonged to the Christian town of Debel, which the Catholic Near East Welfare Association said last week is home to 1,700 people who have been "in total isolation" in recent weeks as the Israeli occupation has forced the Lebanese Army to withdraw from the area. CNEWA said an archbishop in the village has tried to get an aid convoy to Debel, where residents earlier this month had no safe drinking water and enough food to last “no more than two days," but the IDF's shelling in the area has forced air trucks to turn back.
"If [Netanyahu] finds this one offensive," said Grim of the photo of the IDF soldier, "I suggest he not scroll the last few years of posts from Younis Tirawi."
Tirawi reported extensively on the IDF's destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza. He posted a video on social media on April 11 of the IDF demolishing a United Nations school in the southern part of the exclave, and one on April 10 that showed a double-tap strike that killed 33-year-old Palestinian Man Yousef Mansour in al-Mawasi.
Netanyahu said in an interview with Newsmax last week that Israel "is the only country in the Middle East and one of the few countries in the world who stands up for Christians."
In a statement Monday, the IDF said that it is "operating to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure established by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and has no intention of harming civilian infrastructure, including religious buildings or religious symbols."
But the destruction of the Jesus statue in Debel came after a double-tap strike that killed Father Pierre al-Rahi, a Manonite Catholic priest, in another southern Lebanese town last month. Historic Christian churches have also been destroyed by IDF attacks in Gaza.
"The smashing of Christ's statue in Lebanon is latest example of the impunity with which Israeli soldiers have attacked and desecrated religious sites in occupied Palestinian territories," said TRT World.
War correspondent Steve Sweeney, who is based in Beirut, shared footage of a church the IDF destroyed in southern Lebanon in October 2024, in an attack that killed at least eight people.
Sweeney also noted that a month after that attack, Israeli soldiers "desecrated the St. Mema Church in the Christian village of Deir Mimas, southern Lebanon."
The IDF "said the conduct was contrary to its values" at the time, said Sweeney.
Despite officials' expressions of shock on Monday, "Israeli soldiers have been posting images of their war crimes and cultural desecration for two and a half years straight without interruption," said Grim.
UN experts have warned as Israel has carried out its attacks in Lebanon since early March that "deliberately attacking civilians or civilian objects amounts to a war crime."
While the destruction of the Jesus statue drew condemnation Monday from Netanyahu, the IDF, and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee—who called for "swift, severe, and public consequences"—it was far from the only attack waged by Israel in Lebanon over the weekend.
Despite a ceasefire that was announced Friday and a statement from President Donald Trump that further IDF attacks were "PROHIBITED," Israel continued demolishing infrastructure and shelling areas in southern Lebanon over the weekend, and three people were injured in an Israeli drone strike near the Litani River on Monday.
