Israeli soldier seen striking Jesus statue in Lebanon, sparking condemnation

Israel's leaders and military have condemned an Israeli soldier pictured damaging a statue of Jesus Christ.

A photo emerged over the weekend showing a soldier in southern Lebanon taking what appeared to be an axe or sledgehammer to the face of the statue, sparking outrage.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he was “stunned and saddened” by the photo.

“I condemn the act in the strongest terms,” Netanyahu said in a post on X. “We express regret for the incident and for any hurt this has caused to believers in Lebanon and around the world,” he added.

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His comments came after the Israeli military confirmed late Sunday that the photo, showing a statue of Jesus turned upside down and off its cross, was authentic.

“The IDF views the incident with great severity and emphasizes that the soldier’s conduct is wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops,” the IDF said in a statement, re-sharing a post by Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi that had circulated widely on social media.

The IDF said the incident is being further investigated, and appropriate measures will be taken against those involved. The Israeli military was also working to assist the community in restoring the statue to its place, the statement said.

“The IDF 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,” the statement added.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the photo “grave and disgraceful,” saying in a statement on X that he commended the IDF for its condemnation.

“I’m confident that the necessary strict measures will be taken against whoever carried out this ugly act,” Saar said.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in a post on X that "swift, severe, & public consequences are needed" for what he called an "outrageous act."

The incident comes amid a ten-day U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Israel invaded southern Lebanon and has attacked the country from the air after strikes by the country’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

The Israeli operation has displaced more than a million people, and killed nearly 2,300, according to Lebanese officials.

Alongside the photo of the incident, Tirawi said a local page from the Christian border town of Debel mentioned that the statue belonged to them. Reuters spoke to a local priest, Fadi Falfel, who said the cross was part of a small shrine in the garden of a family living on the edge of the village.

“One of the Israeli soldiers broke the cross and did this horrible thing, this desecration of our holy symbols,” he said.

Residents had largely remained in the village throughout the Israeli campaign in southern Lebanon, Reuters reported.

Nearly a third of Lebanon’s population is Christian, according to the State Department, citing Statistics Lebanon, an independent polling and research firm.

Netanyahu said the the soldier’s actions went against Jewish values of tolerance.

"Israel is the only place in the Middle East that adheres to freedom of worship for all," he said.

Last month Israeli police prevented Christian faith leaders from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass, another incident that caused international outrage and a swift public response from the Israeli government.

Some of Israel’s Arab lawmakers were furious about the statue incident.

“We’ll wait to hear the police spokesperson claim that ‘the soldier felt threatened by Jesus’,” wrote Ayman Odeh, Arab-Israeli politician and member of the Knesset, in a post on X.

“Those who bomb mosques and churches in Gaza and spit on Christian clergy in the alleys of Jerusalem with impunity are not afraid to smash a statue of Jesus Christ and publicize it,” Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of the Knesset, wrote in a post on Facebook.

“Perhaps these racists also learned from Donald Trump how to insult Jesus Christ and Pope Leo?” he said in reference to the AI-generated image of Trump as a Jesus-like figure and Trump’s verbal assailing of the American pontiff over his Iran war criticism.