{"id":108541,"date":"2026-05-11T14:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/108541\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T14:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:48:15","slug":"idf-sentences-soldier-who-held-cigarette-to-virgin-mary-statue-to-army-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/108541\/","title":{"rendered":"IDF sentences soldier who held cigarette to Virgin Mary statue to army prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

The IDF<\/a> sentenced a soldier to 21 days in military prison for desecrating a religious Christian symbol in southern Lebanon, the military announced on Monday.<\/p>\n

An additional soldier was sentenced to 14 days in military prison for filming the incident, the IDF said.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the IDF told The Jerusalem Post that the incident, in which a soldier put a cigarette inside the mouth of a Virgin Mary<\/a> statue in the Lebanese village of Debel, occurred weeks ago.<\/p>\n

The incident was publicized on Wednesday when the soldiers posted photos of it on social media.<\/p>\n

The military said it respects freedom of religion and worship, adding that it routinely reinforces procedures to soldiers regarding conduct around sensitive sites.<\/p>\n

Debel is a Maronite Christian village roughly five kilometers northeast of the Israeli border community of Shtula, according to reports attributed to members of the Christian community in the central Lebanese village of Ain Ebel.<\/p>\n

In April, the IDF sentenced a soldier who smashed a statue of Jesus<\/a> in the same Lebanese village to 30 days in prison, as well as the soldier who photographed the incident.<\/p>\n

The soldiers were additionally removed from combat duty.<\/p>\n

The military offered to replace the statue, but the village residents declined, opting instead to replace it with an identical one with assistance from Italian UNIFIL troops.<\/p>\n

Also in April, IDF soldiers were observed on video destroying civilian solar panels<\/a> in the village, with the military launching an investigation into the incident soon after.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The IDF sentenced a soldier to 21 days in military prison for desecrating a religious Christian symbol in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[7036,423,37,93,975,2377,37375],"class_list":{"0":"post-108541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lebanon","8":"tag-christians","9":"tag-idf","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-lebanon","12":"tag-prison","13":"tag-soldiers","14":"tag-virgin-mary"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116556497065698526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}