Photo shows Israeli soldier smashing Jesus statue in Lebanon

In April 2026, social media users shared a photo (archived) they claimed authentically showed an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus Christ in southern Lebanon. 

The photo spread widely after Younis Tirawi, a Palestinian journalist, shared it on X on April 19. Tirawi's photo showed a person wearing what appeared to be a military uniform swinging a large tool onto the head of a statue of Jesus lying on the ground.

People also shared the photo on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived).

The Israeli military reposted (archived) Tirawi's image on April 19, 2026, and confirmed its authenticity. The military said in its X post that the photo "depicts an IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldier operating in southern Lebanon" and announced that its Northern Command would investigate the incident.

In a follow-up post on April 21, the Israeli military said (archived) it would remove two soldiers from combat duty and give them 30 days of military detention for damaging a Christian religious symbol and taking a photo of the act in the southern Lebanese village of Debl. The military also posted a photo (archived) of what it said was a replacement statue that its forces put up.

The photo of the soldier smashing the statue didn't display clear signs of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, AI-detection tools such as Google's Gemini, Sightengine and Hive Moderation did not flag the photo as AI-generated. 

Given the above, we rate claims that the photo authentically showed an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus Christ as true.

Snopes reached out to Tirawi to confirm how he obtained the photo and the Israeli military to ask whether it had determined the motivation of the soldier who damaged the religious symbol. We had not received responses to our questions by the time of publication.

The Israeli military wrote in its April 21 update that the behavior of the soldier who smashed the statue, the soldier who took the photo of the act, and six other soldiers who did not act to stop the incident or report it "deviated from IDF orders and values."

According to the statement, the Israeli military had summoned the six soldiers who stood by for discussions and confirmed they could face further consequences.

At the time of this writing, the Israeli military was attempting to capture Bint Jbeil, a Lebanese town around 7 miles east of Debl. Israeli media described Bint Jbeil as a "historic" Hezbollah stronghold.

Hezbollah, a political party and militant group in Lebanon, opposes Israeli and Western involvement in the Middle East and is largely funded by Iran. Hezbollah launched renewed strikes on Israel in February 2026 after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran killed the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israeli military operations against Hezbollah had reportedly caused damage to southern Lebanese villages such as Debl as of this writing. Akl Naddaf, the president of Debl's municipality, told (archived) the Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed on April 17 that the village had been "under siege" for more than 20 days, with its 1,700 residents lacking basic necessities. 

Naddaf reportedly hoped that a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon would allow aid to enter Debl for the residents who remained.

For further reading, Snopes has previously reported on other claims involving the Israeli military.