The army indicated that forces operating in the village of Yaroun had damaged a structure at 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 at a religious site was damaged,” said army spokesperson Colonel Avichay Adraee in Arabic.
“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 official Lebanese news agency ANI reported on Friday the destruction by the Israeli army in Yaroun, including a monastery, a private school, houses, and businesses.
The French Catholic organization L’Oeuvre d’Orient stated in a press release that the army had “destroyed” a convent in Yaroun belonging to the Salvatorian Sisters, “a Greek Catholic religious order supported by L’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 this message with a photo of a two-story house.
