The Israeli military attacked and seriously damaged a convent in the southern Lebanese town of Yaroun, leading to international condemnation from Christian groups. The convent belonged to the Greek Catholic order “Basilian Salvatorian Sisters,” and was known for supporting schools in the local community.
The order said they had been told the building had been destroyed by military bulldozers, and said that the two sisters who would normally be living at the site had been evacuated in the course of the war and were not present at the time.
French charity L’Œuvre d’Orient condemned the destruction as a “deliberate act,” and part of an Israeli war that is inflicting systematic damage with an eye toward preventing displaced civilians from returning home.
An IDF-released image showing the front of the convent in Yaroun, which accompanied claims that there were no visible signs that it was a religious site.
The IDF denied the incident initially, insisting the convent was perfectly safe, but later admitted that they had damaged it as “Hezbollah infrastructure,” claiming that Hezbollah had fired rockets from inside the convent, but providing no evidence that was actually the case.
The Catholic Church in Lebanon rejected the IDF’s claim. “We are against all practices against places of worship and churches. These are places to spread peace, love and education. These are not military bases,” said Rev. Abdo Abou Kassm, director of the Catholic Center for Information, according to the AP.
The IDF further claimed they had no idea that it was a religious building when they started damaging it, because there were “ad no external signs indicating it was a religious building.” That even the IDF’s image of the building shows a statue, and other images show crosses on the top of the building, undercuts that claim.
The IDF added a subsequent statement that they have “no intention of hurting religious structures” and that they only attack terror infrastructure.” That this is hardly the first time obvious Christian sites have been attacked in Lebanon and that recent reports from IDF commanders are that policy is to destroy everything make those assurances increasingly less credible.
The Christian village of Debel stands as an obvious counterexample, as high-profile incidents of an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer were followed almost immediately by videos of Israeli soldiers destroying the solar panels that powered the village’s water supply.
The go-to response when Israeli troops are caught out destroying Christian religious structure is a blanket denial followed by a promise of investigation. That such incidents keep happening, however, suggest that any building in the occupied parts of southern Lebanon is subject to such treatment, particularly as during the ceasefire the rate of destruction seems to be escalating.
