An image showing an Israeli soldier using a jackhammer to smash a statue of Jesus on a cross in southern Lebanon went viral on social media on Sunday.
Israel has occupied several areas in southern Lebanon since launching its war on the country on March 2. A ceasefire came into effect on Friday.
Members of the Christian community say the statue is in the village of Debel, a Maronite Christian town about six kilometres northwest of Ain Ebel and roughly five kilometres from the Israeli border community of Shtula.
The image sparked immediate outrage online, including among some former allies of US President Donald Trump.
Former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted mockingly on X under the image: “'Our greatest ally' that takes billions of our tax dollars and weapons every year.”
Greene, once a Trump ally, has since turned on the US president over the Epstein files and his decision to follow Israel into a war on Iran, which she has condemned.
Similarly, Matt Gaetz, a former Republican congressman, described the image as “horrific”.
The backlash from figures within the MAGA movement is likely to further damage Israel’s image among one of its strongest support bases in the US - evangelical Christians.
The U.S. has seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz after firing on its engine room, President Trump said in a post on social media.
The 13th Khartia Brigade has become one of the most visible and fastest-growing formations within Ukraine’s National Guard. What began as a volunteer unit defending Kharkiv in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion has since expanded into a corps, operating along some of the most contested sections, including Bakhmut in 2023 and, more recently, the battles around Kupyansk, where it helped retake roughly 90 percent of the city.
Two U.S. Embassy officials died in a car crash on Sunday alongside one Mexican official and an officer in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. 
Eddie Murphy proved to be the undisputed king of comedy as the latest recipient of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award on Saturday, April 18.
A senior State Department delegation traveled to Cuba on April 10 for talks with the government, a State Department official confirmed to USA TODAY. A senior State Department official also had a separate meeting with former Cuban leader Raul Castro's grandson during the visit, the person said.
On 8 April, Israel's military launched the psychopathically titled Operation Eternal Darkness against Lebanon, with predictably macabre results. In the span of a mere 10 minutes, Israel struck more than 100 sites across the country, killing more than 300 people and wounding at least 1,150.
Once you picture schoolgirls, university students, mothers, aunts and grandmothers lying on their stomachs in prison pyjamas - their hands tied behind their backs, and soldiers looming over them, beating them if they move even slightly - you cannot forget the image. 
