Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines Sunday with a claim that Lebanese Christian communities in southern Lebanon are so happy with the protection afforded them by ongoing Israeli military occupation that they’re actually requesting to be annexed into Israel outright.
Netanyahu went on to purport that it wasn’t only Christians, but that Druze and Sunni Muslims were also asking for IDF “protection” from “Hezbollah fanatics.” Netanyahu made these claims during a Fox News interview.
Locals contested the claim more or less immediately. The mayor of Rmeih, one of the largest Christian villages in the area, insisted that not a single mayor had asked for annexation, adding that such a move would be completely out of the question for the villages, and that locals feel connected to the Lebanese identity.
IDF military vehicles seen smashing solar panels in Debel, Lebanon | Image from X
While Netanyahu presented the occupation forces as protecting Christian communities in the area, there have been several high-profile incidents throughout the war in which IDF troops attacked Christian targets, including an incident where a convent was attacked and a highly publicized image in April of IDF troops smashing a statue of Jesus Christ with a sledgehammer.
The sledgehammer incident was in the Lebanese village of Debel, and is just one of several incidents of Israeli troops attacking the Christian village, destroying infrastructure that powers their water supply, or otherwise desecrating religious imagery within.
In the wake of Netanyahu’s claims and the subsequent denial, the Israeli army issued warnings to multiple Lebanese Christian towns and villages across the south, warning them against letting any “outsiders” in.
