Two Israeli soldiers have been pulled from combat duty and given 30-day jail sentences after one photographed the other hitting the head of a statue of the crucified Christ with a sledgehammer, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

Other troops who stood by but did nothing to intervene have also been summoned and could face disciplinary action.

The military replaced the damaged statue with a new crucifix.

The swift administration of military justice by Israel was a tacit acknowledgment of the reputational damage done to the country.

The incident occurred in Debl, a Christian village in Lebanon a few miles from the Israeli border.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, had condemned the destruction of the statue as “a grave affront to the Christian faith” and said the action “adds to other reported incidents of desecration of Christian symbols by IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers in southern Lebanon.”