(LifeSiteNews) — The Council of Melkite Greek Catholic Bishops in Lebanon has voiced deep concern over Israeli military demolitions of civilian homes and religious buildings in areas of southern Lebanon under Israeli control.

In a statement reported by the Associated Press on Monday, the bishops urged the Lebanese government and the United Nations to intervene and protect the property of civilians and religious institutions. They described the destruction — carried out after residents obeyed Israeli evacuation orders — as “a deep wound in the national and human conscience.”

The bishops’ appeal centers on events in the village of Yaroun, where Israeli soldiers bulldozed a Melkite convent belonging to the Greek Catholic Basilian Salvatorian Sisters earlier this month.

The convent, which also supported local education through an associated school run by the Sisters of the Holy Savior, had been evacuated at the outset of intensified fighting. Its two resident religious sisters were safely relocated before the demolition.

Father Charbel Naddaf, priest of the Yaroun parish, confirmed last Friday that Israel carried out the demolition of the convent and its associated school. He denounced the deliberate destruction as “a flagrant violation of international law,” according to L’Orient Today.

The Melkite Greek Catholic priest continued to explain that despite any of their statements with regard to this incident, Israel’s objective is to “empty the area of its inhabitants and prevent their return,” something the Israeli army continues to accomplish “in the absence of any deterrent.”

“They destroy houses and places of worship, and no one stops them,” the priest explained, demanding Lebanese authorities and the international community intervene.

The French Catholic charity L’Œuvre d’Orient echoed this view, denouncing the demolition as a “deliberate act of destruction of a place of worship” that forms part of a systematic campaign aimed at discouraging displaced residents from returning home.

Israel repeatedly claims that it does not target religious sites, yet the long, ongoing history of destroying clearly identifiable Christian religious buildings and symbols tells a completely different story.

In this case, the IDF denied accusations that it had destroyed the convent and as an alibi published an image it claimed showed the building still standing and largely undamaged. A Christian leader from Yaroun named Adib Ajaka, however, demonstrated the IDF release was misleading as the photo actually depicted the adjacent archbishopric and clinic while the convent itself had been completely leveled by bulldozers.

As reported by the AP, Ajaka “handed over a photograph showing rubble next to the clinic building that he said were the remains of the convent.”

The incidents occur against the backdrop of Israel’s ground operations in southern Lebanon, where it is employing “Gaza tactics” razing villages to the ground with virtual impunity. One mid-April satellite image analysis from the BBC revealed that more than 1,400 buildings had been destroyed in the course of the Israeli offensive including entire villages having been effectively erased.

After similar deliberate destructions of Catholic Church property by the Israeli army in Lebanon in 2024, including the filmed destruction of a previous monastery and a statue of St. George, Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Ibrahim Mikail Ibrahim, metropolitan of Zahle and the Bekaa in Lebanon, condemned in a statement the “crime of destruction,” saying that “what happened is not a mere passing aggression, but a blatant and unacceptable violation of all human values and international law, as well as a direct attack on the educational and spiritual mission of the Church.”

The archbishop affirmed that “the destruction of this religious and educational place constitutes an aggravated crime against humanity and the land, and respects neither the sanctity of holy places nor that of scientific institutions.” He emphasized that the targeting of a monastery and a school equivalent to attacking “childhood, knowledge, and the hope for a better future.”

Israeli anti-Christian attacks escalating

LifeSiteNews has documented what appears to be a disturbing escalation in attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers against Christians, their clergy, and religious property across the Holy Land and Lebanon.

On April 19, a photograph surfaced on X and other social media outlets showing an Israeli soldier smashing the head of the statue of Jesus Christ with a sledgehammer. The image quickly went viral and sparked global outrage among Christians, including the Catholic bishops of the Holy Land who issued an “unreserved condemnation” of the desecration. Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa stated that the act “constitutes a grave affront to the Christian faith and adds to other reported incidents of desecration of Christian symbols by IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon.”

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jewish terrorists from illegal Israeli settlements have repeatedly terrorized the predominantly Christian town of Taybeh as well as other Palestinian communities. As has become a regular occurrence, masked settlers last July “stormed this Christian village … setting vehicles on fire, hurling rocks at homes, and spraying hateful graffiti on the walls.”

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem described the armed intruders as being on horseback, spreading terror and torching holy sites while also destroying farmland.

Last month, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem also called Jewish settler destruction of their Church-owned lands and trees using an excavator “a ‘red line.’”

In Jerusalem, physical assaults and harassment have surged. Last week, video captured a “brutal assault on (a) Catholic nun” who was slammed to the ground and kicked by a Jewish settler terrorist named Yonah Schreiber near King David’s tomb.

Yonah Schreiber was arrested in Jerusalem Tuesday after he viciously assaulted a French nun. Christians claim attacks are increasing under Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration.

MORE: https://t.co/WxNE9dZMND pic.twitter.com/aAbRbKT8qe

— Christine Niles (@ChristineNiles1) May 2, 2026

Other reports document the common occurrence of Christian clergy and religious being spat on and harassed by Jewish terrorists in Jerusalem.

Such incidents have highlighted the persistent and even deadly aggressions from radical Jewish sects over land and security in the West Bank and Jerusalem, where Church properties have faced repeated pressures with Christians consistently warning their western co-religionists that radical Zionist movements, most often with government sanction, are seeking to drive them out of the Holy Land.

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