{"id":589893,"date":"2026-04-21T20:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=589893"},"modified":"2026-04-21T20:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:40:00","slug":"israeli-soldiers-in-lebanon-who-sledgehammered-statue-of-jesus-arrested-as-bibi-does-damage-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=589893","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Soldiers In Lebanon Who Sledgehammered Statue Of Jesus Arrested As Bibi Does Damage Control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Israeli Soldiers In Lebanon Who Sledgehammered Statue Of Jesus Arrested As Bibi Does Damage Control<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>Earlier this week we featured commentary on a disturbing viral photograph:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2026-04-20\/idf-under-fire-after-troops-caught-destroying-statue-jesus-sledgehammer\">IDF Under Fire After Troops Caught Destroying Statue Of Jesus With Sledgehammer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The destruction of the statue took place in the Maronite Christian village of Debel<\/strong>, which is roughly 54 miles to the southeast of Beirut and situated just north of the border between Lebanon and Israel.<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/idfsledgehammer.jpg?itok=CUP7qwnL\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/idfsledgehammer.jpg?itok=CUP7qwnL\"><\/a><\/p>\n<figure role=\"group\" class=\"caption caption-img inline-images image-style-inline-images\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"46c9ba26-7175-4159-ba87-a8d88df97dfe\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" height=\"335\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/idfsledgehammer.jpg?itok=CUP7qwnL\" width=\"500\" \/><figcaption><em>Photo taken by IDF soldiers<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Since the onset of the war Israel began waging against Iran in March, Debel has come under heavy fire after a second front was created against Lebanon when the IDF resumed attacks against Hezbollah &#8211; and as Hezbollah began once again lobbing missiles into northern Israel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The demographics of the village are almost entirely Christian, <\/strong>with 99.5% of registered voters adhering to the Christian faith, over 92% of whom are Maronite Catholics. In the 20th century, Christianity &#8211; made up chiefly of Lebanese Catholic and Eastern Orthodox believers &#8211; was actually the majority demographic of the small Mediterranean country.<\/p>\n<p>At this point, Islam is a slight majority, but Christianity is still the most sizeable minority, also with the Lebanese President being a Christian along with top officials. <strong>But most of the American public remains ignorant of just how large and visible the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East remain<\/strong>, with many Westerners in general falsely assuming the whole of the Levant is somehow just &#8220;the Muslim world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Increasingly, outlets like Fox News have begun to little by little acknowledge the suffering of Lebanese and Palestinian Christians as Israel&#8217;s multi-front wars grind on. And this is why it is <strong>now such a sensitive issue for the Netanyahu government<\/strong>, which has already long ago lost the support of Tucker Carlson and some other big conservative names, even including some Christian leaders.<\/p>\n<p>As of Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cew790ppn8jo\">said<\/a> the soldier who struck the statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer, along with the soldier who photographed the incident, will receive<strong> 30 days of military detention<\/strong>. They will also be\u00a0&#8220;removed from combat duty&#8221; following an inquiry &#8211; though there&#8217;s no indication they will be fully discharged from the army.<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/mariostatue.jpg?itok=Ly_Ns0Ok\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/mariostatue.jpg?itok=Ly_Ns0Ok\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"577c9b12-3915-4c09-aefb-f39ad9ff21f0\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" height=\"616\" width=\"500\" class=\"inline-images image-style-inline-images\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/mariostatue.jpg?itok=Ly_Ns0Ok\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the aftermath of the photo circulating said he was &#8220;stunned and saddened&#8221; by what happened. The IDF in turn expressed\u00a0<strong>&#8220;deep regret over the incident&#8221;<\/strong> &#8211; with the military also saying troops had replaced the damaged statue &#8220;in full co-ordination with the local community&#8221; shortly afterward.<\/p>\n<p>But despite all of this public relations &#8216;clean-up&#8217; &#8211; the tragic reality that remains is that Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian Christians will continue to die.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" lang=\"\" class=\"username\" xml:lang=\"\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Tue, 04\/21\/2026 &#8211; 16:40<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/idfsledgehammer.jpg?itok=CUP7qwnL\" title=\"Israeli Soldiers In Lebanon Who Sledgehammered Statue Of Jesus Arrested As Bibi Does Damage Control\" \/><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli Soldiers In Lebanon Who Sledgehammered Statue Of Jesus Arrested As Bibi Does Damage Control Earlier this week we featured commentary on a disturbing viral photograph:\u00a0IDF Under Fire After Troops Caught Destroying Statue Of Jesus With Sledgehammer. The destruction of the statue took place in the Maronite Christian village of Debel, which is roughly 54&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=589893\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Israeli Soldiers In Lebanon Who Sledgehammered Statue Of Jesus Arrested As Bibi Does Damage Control<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":589894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-589893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=589893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/589894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=589893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=589893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=589893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}