Israel attacks Lebanon

Outrage continues to grow over the Israeli soldier who was photographed desecrating a statue of Jesus Christ in southern Lebanon, including among Trump’s former MAGA allies. From a Polish MP to a Palestinian theologian, observers say it reveals a wider pattern.

A photo of an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus Christ in Lebanon has sparked outrage in the United States, adding to the anger Israel is facing, including from parts of US President Donald Trump’s base.

Although the incident is only one among a broad range of atrocities that Israel is accused of committing in the region in recent years, it garnered condemnations across the world and prompted a response from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the US, where support for Israel was once unchallenged – especially in right-wing circles that purport to espouse Christian values – the desecration of the Christian religious symbol added fuel to the criticism that the Israeli government is facing from some Republicans.

“You would never know it by consuming American corporate media, but this kind of incident is not rare,” said right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson, a former Trump ally.

“The Israeli government has permitted its soldiers to behave like barbarians for decades, all while sucking up generous funding from the United States. The only difference between now and the past is that social media has exposed Israel’s behavior for the world to see,” Carlson wrote in his newsletter on Monday.

‘Horrific’

Former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – who fell out with Trump over his hawkish foreign policy – highlighted that Israel receives billions of dollars in US military aid annually.

“‘Our greatest ally’ that takes billions of our tax dollars and weapons every year,” she wrote in a comment on X in response to the photo showing an Israeli soldier taking a sledgehammer to the head of the statue of Jesus.

Matt Gaetz, another former Republican congressman and Trump ally, said, “Horrific”.

For his part, independent journalist Glenn Greenwald mocked how Christian Zionists may defend Israel over smashing the statue.

“Christian Zionists: This Israeli soldier was absolutely justified in smashing the head of the Jesus Christ statue because Hezbollah and Hamas were hiding inside. We owe him our gratitude,” Greenwald wrote on X.

The anger echoed growing scepticism of the close alliance with Israel in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) constituency.

Trump is already facing pressure over joining Israel in starting a war against Iran, which sent oil prices soaring. Earlier on Monday, the US president addressed and denied claims that Netanyahu dragged the US into the conflict.

Support for Israel in the US is at a historic low, recent public opinion polls show.

While Israel still enjoys near-unanimous Republican support in Congress, that consensus is starting to fray, with dissent being expressed by the likes of Carlson, in part due to prolonged wars in the Middle East and attacks on Christians.

Israel says it will investigate

The desecration of the statue, which took place near the town of Debl in south Lebanon, according to local reports, prompted an unusually swift response from the highest level of the Israeli government.

“I condemn the act in the strongest terms. Military authorities are conducting a criminal probe of the matter and will take appropriately harsh disciplinary action against the offender,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday.

Israel rarely holds its soldiers accountable for well-documented abuses in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon, including sexual violence.

Netanyahu, who has been evading an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over war crimes charges in Gaza since 2024, went on to argue that Israel treats Christians better than any other country in the region.

“While Christians are being slaughtered in Syria and Lebanon by Muslims, the Christian population in Israel thrives unlike elsewhere in the Middle East,” the Israeli prime minister claimed.

“Israel is the only country in the region that the Christian population and standard of living is growing.”

Lebanon has the largest per capita Christian population in the Middle East, and its president is a Maronite Catholic.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar joined Netanyahu in denouncing the desecration of the statue, saying that it is “entirely contrary” to Israeli values.

But while Israel’s supporters tried to portray smashing the statue as an isolated mistake by one soldier, the incident reflects a pattern of Israeli attacks against houses of worship, including churches.

In 2024, Israeli troops filmed a mock wedding between two soldiers at a church in Deir Mimas in Lebanon and vandalised the building.

An Israeli tank demolished a statue of Saint George in the southern Lebanese village of Yaroun last year, as well.

Israel has bombed Palestinian churches several times in Gaza since the start of its genocidal war in the enclave, including an attack that killed at least 18 people in 2023.

Israel destroyed more than 1,000 mosques and three churches in Gaza during the war, according to local officials.

Catholic leaders respond

The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land denounced the attack on the statue on Monday.

“This act constitutes a grave affront to the Christian faith and adds to other reported incidents of desecration of Christian symbols by [Israeli] soldiers in southern Lebanon,” it said in a statement.

“It further reveals a disturbing failure in moral and human formation, wherein even the most elementary reverence for the sacred and for the dignity of others has been gravely compromised.”

The incident came as Israeli soldiers pushed to completely destroy homes and civilian infrastructure in dozens of Lebanese villages in order to prevent residents from returning to them.

“The outrage shouldn’t be about a destroyed statue of Jesus – abhorrent as that is,” Palestinian pastor Munther Isaac wrote in a social media post on Monday.

“The real outrage is the targeting of civilians, the assault on human dignity, the devastation in Gaza and Lebanon. War is evil. We need Accountability.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on Trump and Congress to intervene and end Israeli violations after the destruction of the statue.

“For years, our government has ignored and enabled persistent Israeli attacks on churches and Christians in Lebanon, Gaza, and elsewhere,” CAIR said.

“Our message to American public officials is simple: If you continue sending more weapons and provide political cover for Israel’s rogue actions, you own what you see in this picture.”

US band The Strokes used their Coachella set to showcase the US-Israeli destruction of universities in Gaza and Iran, including Gaza’s al-Israa University.

Social media users condemn Western silence on attacks on religious symbols and sites by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

A viral photograph showing an Israeli soldier hitting a statue of Jesus Christ in southern Lebanon with a sledgehammer has sparked outrage.

In a statement on Monday, the Israeli military confirmed the authenticity of the image that was widely shared online, garnering more than 5 million views on X.

It said that following an initial review, it was determined that the photograph showed an Israeli soldier “operating in southern Lebanon”, where Israel last month launched a ground invasion in conjunction with aerial bombardment amid its joint war with the United States on Iran.

The military added that an investigation had been opened and that “appropriate measures will be taken against those involved in accordance with the findings”.

Commenting on social media, Ayman Odeh, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, wrote pointedly: “We’ll wait to hear the police spokesperson claim that ‘the soldier felt threatened by Jesus’.”

Ahmad Tibi, another Palestinian member of the Knesset, wrote on Facebook that those who blow up mosques and churches in Gaza and spit on Christian clergy in Jerusalem without punishment are not afraid to destroy a statue of Jesus Christ and publish it.

“Perhaps these racists have also learned from Donald Trump to insult Jesus Christ and insult Pope Leo?” he asked, referring to the US president’s recent controversies, including his now-deleted AI-generated image that portrayed him as a Jesus-like figure and his feud with the head of the Roman Catholic Church, who has criticised the war on Iran.

Several activists, academics and writers also criticised the desecration of the statue, which was located on the outskirts of the village of Debl in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel.

Social media users also condemned the international silence following attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers against religious sites and symbols.

“When the Western world remains silent, racists go further,” said Tibi.

Israeli forces repeatedly attacked religious sites, including mosques and churches, during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, meanwhile, settlers vandalised or attacked 45 mosques last year, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Separately, the Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC) documented at least 201 incidents of violence against Christians, primarily committed by Orthodox Jews targeting international clergy or individuals displaying Christian symbols, between January 2024 and September 2025.

The majority of these incidents, which included multiple forms of harassment, including spitting, verbal abuse, vandalism and assaults, took place in Jerusalem’s Old City, located in occupied East Jerusalem.

A photo of an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus Christ with a sledgehammer in southern Lebanon has sparked widespread condemnation. Israeli officials confirmed the image is genuine and ‘promised to investigate’.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi discusses the prospect that the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon could lead to a comprehensive deal between the US and Iran to end regional hostilities.

Hezbollah warns it has its ‘finger on the trigger’ in case of Israeli violations of the temporary ceasefire.

Displaced Lebanese have begun cautiously returning to their homes in the south after Lebanon and Israel agreed to a 10-day truce, even as the Lebanese army calls on residents to delay their return and Hezbollah warns it has its “finger on the trigger” in case of Israeli violations.

Tens of thousands of people poured into areas of southern Lebanon on Friday morning hours after the truce went into effect, many heading back to homes and villages battered by more than a month of Israeli attacks.

“People just couldn’t wait,” reported Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr from Nabatieh, one of the hardest hit areas.

“Even if it’s 10 days, they want to return to their homes. Some of them are just coming to see what remains of their homes, what remains of their lives.

“They want to show that they don’t want to give up their lands,” added Khodr.

While the ceasefire largely appeared to hold, Lebanon’s army accused Israel of several early violations on Friday, including intermittent shelling of ‌southern Lebanese villages.

Lebanon’s National News Agency also reported that unexploded ordnance killed a boy in the town of Majdal Selem, while rescuers uncovered the bodies of at least a dozen people killed in earlier attacks in Tyre.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the ceasefire “may already be undermined by ongoing military operations” and called for “the safety of civilians on both sides of the border”.

Hezbollah said its fighters “will keep their finger on the trigger because they are wary of the enemy’s treachery”.

Israeli air strikes and a ground invasion of parts of southern Lebanon have killed more than 2,100 people and displaced some 1.2 million in the latest round of fighting, according to Lebanese authorities.

Hezbollah attacks, meanwhile, killed two Israeli civilians, while 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon, according to Israel.

Israeli officials have said they intend to maintain control over Lebanese territory extending to the Litani River as a “buffer zone” against Hezbollah.

‘Unliveable’

As residents assessed the damage to their hometowns, some pledged to stay, while others – finding nothing to return to or fearing the fragile truce could collapse – said they would leave again.

“There’s destruction and it’s unliveable. Unliveable. We’re taking our things and leaving again,” said Fadel Badreddine, who returned to Nabatieh with his young son and wife. “May God grant us relief and end this whole thing permanently – not temporarily – so we can return to our homes and lands.”

Al Jazeera’s Khodr said “wherever you look you see damage, destruction” in Nabatieh. “So much has been lost in this conflict in the past 46 days.”

If the ceasefire holds, it could ease one of the main points of tension in US-Iran negotiations. Iran and mediator Pakistan had maintained that Lebanon should be covered in a separate US-Iran ceasefire framework, while Israel claimed it was not part of that deal and continued its attacks.

Ali Akbar Dareini, a researcher at Iran’s Center for Strategic Studies, said the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire had removed one obstacle to wider negotiations between the US and Iran because Tehran views the regional conflict as interconnected, describing this as a “unity of fronts”.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country hosted last week’s ceasefire talks between the US and Iran, welcomed the Israel-Lebanon truce on Friday and expressed “hope that it will pave the way for sustainable peace”.

He also praised the mediation role of US President Donald Trump, who has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to the White House for “meaningful talks”.

“Pakistan reaffirms its unwavering support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon, and will continue to support all efforts aimed at lasting peace in the region,” Sharif said on X.

Abed Abou Shhadeh, a political commentator based in Israel, says the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon is ‘extremely problematic, not only for Netanyahu, but for the Israeli public who were promised for two and a half years now, absolute victory’.

A 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has gone into effect. It began at midnight local time (21:00 GMT on Thursday), after being announced by US President Donald Trump.