The army indicated that forces operating in the village of Yaroun had damaged a structure on a religious site while dismantling what they described as a “terrorist infrastructure” in the area. “It was noted that, during the operations carried out (…) to destroy the terrorist infrastructure, one of the houses located on a religious site was damaged,” said an army spokesperson in Arabic, Colonel Avichay Adraee.
“There were no visible signs indicating that it was a religious building. As soon as clear distinctive signs were observed on another building on the site, the (Israeli) forces acted to prevent any further damage to the site,” he added. The Lebanese official news agency ANI reported on Friday about the destruction by the Israeli army in Yaroun, including a monastery, a private school, houses, and shops.
The Oeuvre d’Orient, a French Catholic association, stated in a press release that the army had “destroyed” a convent belonging to the Salvatorian Sisters in Yaroun, “a Greek Catholic religious order supported by Oeuvre d’Orient.” They denounced a “deliberate act of destruction of a place of worship and the systematic destruction of homes in Southern Lebanon aimed at preventing the return of civilian populations.”
However, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that the building, referred to as a “monastery,” had been “destroyed,” accompanying the message with a photo of a two-story house.
