On Sunday, April 19, 2026, a photograph began circulating on X. It was posted by the Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi. The image showed a soldier of the Israel Defense Forces, in combat uniform, striking the head of a statue of the crucified Jesus with a sledgehammer. The statue was broken. It had been torn from its cross. It was lying partially on the ground when the hammer came down.

The incident took place in Debel, a Maronite Christian village in southern Lebanon, about 87 kilometers south of Beirut. Over 99 percent of its inhabitants are Christians. The statue stood in a small family shrine at the edge of the village, in the garden of a home. Hours before the hammer photograph went viral, the Facebook page of the local church in Debel had posted an image of the statue intact, with a single verse written below it.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Debel itself had not been destroyed in the fighting. Its 1,700 Maronite inhabitants were still living in their homes, one of the few villages in southern Lebanon whose residents chose to stay through the war. The statue of Jesus had not fallen to an airstrike. It fell to a sledgehammer, held in the hands of a soldier walking through a living village.

The IDF confirmed the authenticity of the image that same Sunday evening. By Monday, it had identified and located the soldier. The findings of the investigation were presented that night to the commander of the 162nd Division, Brigadier General Sagiv Dahan, who is responsible for the sector in southern Lebanon where the incident took place.

On Tuesday, April 21, the military announced the sanctions. The soldier who destroyed the statue and the soldier who photographed the act were dismissed from combat duty and sentenced to thirty days in military prison.

Six other soldiers who were present at the scene and did not intervene or report the incident were summoned for “clarification discussions.” The army declared that the soldiers’ conduct “completely deviated from IDF orders and values.” In coordination with the local community, a new statue was installed at the same site.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued his condemnation on Monday. He said he was “stunned and saddened,” and condemned the act “in the strongest terms.” He emphasized that Israel is the only country in the region where the Christian population is growing. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar condemned the “shameful action” and apologized “to every Christian whose feelings were hurt.” President Isaac Herzog offered a forceful repudiation of the incident during a meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei.

The official reaction was fast. It was firm. By the standards of any modern army operating in an active war zone, it was exemplary. But the image had already crossed the world.

The Christian Response

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, responded from the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land with a statement issued on April 20. He expressed “profound indignation and unreserved condemnation of the desecration of a representation of Jesus Crucified by an Israeli soldier in a Lebanese village.” He spoke of a “disturbing failure in moral and human formation,” and demanded “immediate and decisive disciplinary action.”

Pope Leo XIV had already sent, on April 7, through Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a message of closeness to the Christians of Debel for the “dramatic circumstances” they were enduring. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani described the incident as “a violent act of aggression against Christians, who in the Middle East represent an instrument of peace.”

From the other end of the Christian spectrum, and from a position far more hostile toward Israel, several figures within Donald Trump’s former MAGA coalition denounced the act. Tucker Carlson wrote in his newsletter on Monday: “The Israeli government has permitted its soldiers to behave like barbarians for decades, all while sucking up generous funding from the United States. The only difference between now and the past is that social media has exposed Israel’s behavior for the world to see.”

Former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, highlighting that Israel receives billions of dollars in US military aid annually, wrote on X: “‘Our greatest ally’ that takes billions of our tax dollars and weapons every year.” Former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz called the image “Horrific.”

Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald mocked how Christian Zionists might defend Israel: “Christian Zionists: This Israeli soldier was absolutely justified in smashing the head of the Jesus Christ statue because Hezbollah and Hamas were hiding inside. We owe him our gratitude.”

The image arrived at the worst possible moment. Antisemitism is rising globally, and a fracture has opened within a sector of the Christian world that has traditionally supported the State of Israel, as the reactions of Carlson, Greene, Gaetz, and Greenwald themselves make clear.

The Maronite Christians of southern Lebanon have historically been among the few civilian allies Israel has had in that region. The photograph contradicts, in a single blow, every decade of interreligious coexistence diplomacy Israel has cultivated. That is why the official reaction was so swift.

Behind the incident, there is a statistical layer that rarely enters these discussions. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, at the close of 2025, roughly 184,200 Christians were living in the country, 1.9 percent of the total population. The community grew by 0.7 percent in the past year. Nazareth, with 18,900 Christians, remains the city with the largest Christian population, followed by Haifa, Jerusalem, and Nof HaGalil.

Israel is, in fact, the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population is growing rather than shrinking. In Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, the Christian presence has been decimated over the past century.

But there is a less-known figure. Within the Jewish population of Israel itself there is today a community estimated at 30,000 Messianic Jews, meaning Jews who recognize Jesus of Nazareth, whom they call Yeshua, as the promised Messiah.

In 1948, when the modern State of Israel was founded, there were only 23 Messianic believers in the whole country. Today, they worship in roughly 300 congregations across Israel, from Jerusalem to Haifa to Tel Aviv.

More than a thousand of those Messianic Jews currently serve in the same Israel Defense Forces whose uniform was worn by the soldier with the hammer. They hold senior posts in the Air Force, in military intelligence, and in combat units.

One of them, Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli diplomat born in Israel and partly raised in Germany, was assassinated last year in Washington alongside his fiancée, Sarah Milgrim. They were killed for being Jews and for loving Israel. Lischinsky was a Messianic believer. He belonged to the Melech HaMlachim congregation near the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. He and members of his family had served in the IDF.

They are Hebrews of Hebrews. They serve Israel. And they believe in the One whose image fell beneath the hammer in Debel.

The First Christians Were Jews

There is something worth recalling at this point, because the passage of time and the historical separations have obscured it. The first Christians were not Europeans, nor Romans, nor Greeks, nor Saxons. They were Jews. The twelve apostles were Jews. They spoke Aramaic among themselves. They read the Torah. They observed the feasts. They went to the Temple. And from Pentecost onward, after the resurrection of Jesus, they went out into the ancient world to announce an unprecedented message: that the Messiah promised by the prophets of Israel had come, had been crucified in Jerusalem, had risen from the dead, and that salvation was available through faith in that sacrifice.

According to Christian tradition, most of the twelve apostles died as martyrs for sustaining that testimony. Peter was crucified upside down in Rome around 66 AD, during the persecution under Emperor Nero, at his own request, since he did not feel worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. Andrew, his brother, was crucified in Greece. James the Greater, brother of John, was executed by King Herod Agrippa around 44 AD, the only apostolic martyrdom recorded inside the New Testament itself. Philip was arrested and cruelly put to death by a Roman proconsul in retaliation for converting the proconsul’s wife. Bartholomew suffered martyrdom after widespread missionary travels through India, Armenia, Ethiopia, and Southern Arabia. Thomas was pierced through with the spears of four soldiers in India, where ancient Marthoma Christians revere him as their founder. Matthew, according to some traditions, was stabbed to death in Ethiopia. James the Lesser was stoned and then clubbed to death in Syria, according to the Jewish historian Josephus. Simon the Zealot was killed in Persia after refusing to sacrifice to the sun god. Matthias, the apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot, was put to death by burning in Syria.

John, brother of James, was the only one of the twelve generally thought to have died a natural death from old age. He was the church leader in the Ephesus area. During Domitian’s persecution in the mid-nineties, he was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he is credited with writing the last book of the New Testament, the Revelation. An early Latin tradition has him escaping unhurt after being cast into boiling oil in Rome.

Twelve men. And then a thirteenth, Paul, beheaded in Rome. Eleven executed. One exiled to Patmos during Domitian’s persecution for his faith before dying in old age. One apostle to the Gentiles beheaded under the same Nero who crucified Peter. None of them retracted. None of them denied what they had seen. None of them changed their testimony under torture or under threat of death. They affirmed until their last breath that they had seen the risen Messiah of Israel, and that through faith in Him there was forgiveness of sins and eternal life for Jews and Gentiles alike.

The Most Extraordinary Case

But the most extraordinary case of all was not one of the twelve. It was another Jew. A young Pharisee, a scholar, zealous for the Law, a bitter enemy of the early Christians. His name was Saul, and he was from Tarsus.

He tells us who he was, in his own words, in his letter to the Philippians. Circumcised on the eighth day. Of the nation of Israel. Of the tribe of Benjamin. A Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the Law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the Church. As to the righteousness that is in the Law, blameless. He was born in Tarsus, in the Roman province of Cilicia, into a family that held Roman citizenship by birth. He spoke Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew. As a young man he was sent to Jerusalem to study at the feet of Gamaliel, grandson of Hillel and one of the most revered teachers of Torah in the first century. He received, in his own words in the book of Acts, an education “according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers.” In his letter to the Galatians he writes that he was advancing in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries, being exceedingly zealous for the traditions of his fathers.

He was a man of the elite. A scholar. And he used every credential he had to persecute the followers of a crucified Nazarene whom he considered a blasphemer. It was at his feet that the witnesses laid their garments during the execution of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The book of Acts records it without softening the sentence: “And Saul was consenting to his death.”

A couple of years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, Saul left Jerusalem along the northern road. He carried letters from the high priest addressed to the synagogues of Damascus. The letters authorized him to arrest any man or woman belonging to the Way, as the early Christians of the first century were called, and bring them bound to Jerusalem for judgment before the Sanhedrin. The road ran about 215 kilometers through the hills of Judea, across the Jordan, and down into Syria.

As he neared Damascus, around midday, a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, suddenly surrounded him. He fell to the ground. He heard a voice speaking to him in Aramaic.

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

He asked, “Who are you, Lord?”

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

The men traveling with Saul heard the sound but saw no one. Saul rose from the ground blind. They led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he did not see, did not eat, did not drink. He waited in the house of a man named Judas, on a street called Straight. A disciple named Ananias received a vision. The Lord Jesus ordered him to go to where Saul was. Ananias hesitated. He knew of the arrests in Jerusalem, of the letters from the high priest, of the destruction Saul had already caused. The voice answered him: “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to carry my name before Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.” Ananias obeyed. He laid his hands on Saul. Something like scales fell from his eyes. He saw again. He was baptized. He ate. And in the same synagogues of Damascus where he had arrived with letters of arrest, he began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.

From that encounter, Paul became the Apostle to the Gentiles. For the next three decades, he carried the gospel through Cyprus, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and finally Rome. He was imprisoned, flogged, stoned, and shipwrecked three times. He was arrested in Jerusalem, appealed to Caesar as a Roman citizen, and was beheaded in Rome around the year 64 during the persecution of Emperor Nero. He wrote thirteen letters that make up nearly half of the New Testament. He never retracted what he saw on the road to Damascus.

The soldier’s act in Debel was grave. It reflects a deep contempt. And although it was only a statue, and this article does not enter the theological debate about religious images, the motivation behind that hammer reveals a disdain toward the object of worship of one of the few allied minorities Israel has left in the region. No act of vandalism against a sacred symbol and no aggression against another person’s faith can be justified, least of all by an army that calls itself the most moral in the world. At least in this case, the IDF’s response was firm. Israel’s official response was firm. The condemnation from Pizzaballa, from Tajani, from so many Christian voices around the world, was just.

As Christians, regardless of the denomination we belong to, we must name acts like this for what they are. But if we analyze the matter in depth and are honest with ourselves, none of us is in any position to cast the first stone, nor the second, nor the third. At least in my case, before I knew Christ, I was myself an atheist, and I came to feel a profound contempt for Him. I too, at some point in my life, was traveling toward Damascus.

Paul, after three decades of preaching, wrote to young Timothy a sentence that cannot be read without trembling: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

Chief. Not last. Not one among many. Chief.

From our Christian worldview, the forgiveness offered through the sacrifice of Christ is wide enough to cover everyone without exception. You, as a Christian, should have read in your Bible about the thief on the cross, who recognized Jesus only a few hours before dying beside Him, and to whom the Lord promised that very day: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

No long life of obedience. No time for good works. No time to correct anything. Just faith, in the last hours, at the edge of death. That is the width of the grace we are talking about.

If that Pharisee who guarded the cloaks of Stephen’s murderers, that man who left Jerusalem with letters to arrest and destroy, that blameless and zealous persecutor armed to the teeth with credentials and with certainty, could be stopped by a light on the road to Damascus and turned into the greatest missionary in Christian history, then the door is open for all. For the soldier with the hammer. For the ideologue who celebrates the photo. For the commentator who uses it as ammunition.

And for the Christian who is outraged without looking in the mirror, a reminder. If you truly believe that one day you were born again, remember every time you despised Christ before you knew Him. Remember the indifference, the mockery, the sarcasm, the pride, the years of your life spent walking with your back to Him. If Paul, after all he did for the Kingdom, considered himself the chief of sinners and unworthy of anything, why would you consider yourself worthy of even one drop of the grace that was poured over you?

Salvation is not earned. It is given to us by grace, through faith, and this not of ourselves, for it is the gift of God, so that no one may boast.

Do not be surprised the day the soldier with the hammer becomes the next Saul of Tarsus.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)