Screenshot taken from a video widely shared on social media and showing the demolishing of the statue of Saint George in Yaroun, South Lebanon by the Israeli army.
The claim:
On April 13, media reports claimed that an Israeli bulldozer demolished the statue of Saint George in Yaroun (Bint Jbeil district in South Lebanon) in a "new violation of the cease-fire agreement." A video showing the demolition was also shared on social media.
Who is behind the claim?
Many media outlets, including the state-run National News Agency (NNA), reported the demolition of the statue on Sunday.
The former Minister of Labor, Moustafa Bayram, who is close to Hezbollah, commented on the destruction of the statue as if it happened on Sunday: "The Zionist enemy demolishes a statue of sacred religious symbolism (St. George) in southern Lebanon (Yaroun) and documents it shamelessly — a repeated confirmation of its hostility toward everything that is other than itself and a reminder that it is an occupying entity that has no place among the people of this region", he posted on X.
Some Hezbollah supporters also took on social media on Sunday to criticize Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, the government and the Lebanese Army for failing to address the demolition of the statue.
After carrying out a reverse video search, L'Orient Today found that the video seemed to originate from an X account under the name of "Israel Genocide Tracker." The account posted the video on April 12 with the following text: "An Israeli D9 operator recorded himself razing the Saint George shrine in the village of Yaroun during the invasion of southern Lebanon." It was the only video found in recent days.
Key context/the actual facts:
A security source and the priest of the village, who held the Palm mass in the village on Sunday, told L'Orient Today that the demolition of the statue happened during the ground invasion of Southern Lebanon (announced on Sep. 30, 2024) in the last war between Hezbollah and Israel, which ended with a cease-fire on Nov. 27, 2024.
The priest added that he does not know why the video is being shared right now. Still, he hinted that it could be related to the Palm mass, possibly intended to "scare or intimidate the people of the village", especially since Sunday's mass was the first to be held in the village since the war.
Commenting on the matter, a spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said they "are not aware of demolishing in Yaroun in recent days."
If it's not clear when the video of the demolition of the statue was recorded, according to the reports published then by Hezbollah concerning their attacks against Israeli troops movement in South Lebanon, the Israeli army could have reached the outskirts of the village of Yaroun as soon as Oct. 4, 2024, a few days only after the launch of the ground incursion on Sep. 30 of the same year.
A cease-fire agreement was reached in late Nov.2024, but it has since been violated numerous times. Although the Israeli army withdrew from Lebanese villages before Feb. 18, it is still present in five strategic points inside Lebanese territories. One of these positions, the Jal al-Deir one, is located near Aitaroun, some 9 kilometers east of Yaroun, while the Jabal Blat one is around 17 kilometers west of Yaroun.
In summary:
We have deduced that this information is misleading.
We define 'misleading' as an instance where information has been used to deliberately mislead people by intentionally misstating the facts or context, or content that serves as a form of propaganda.
