The Israeli military has opened an investigation after a photo circulated online showing a soldier placing a cigarette into the mouth of a Virgin Mary statue in Debel, a Maronite Christian-majority village in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border. Military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said the IDF 'views the incident with utmost severity' and that the soldier's conduct 'deviates from the values expected of its personnel,' adding that the image was taken several weeks ago but only began spreading widely on Wednesday. The incident is the latest in a series of reported acts of desecration in the same village, where last month two soldiers were jailed for 30 days after one was filmed smashing a statue of Jesus Christ with a sledgehammer, and comes amid broader reports of Israeli military actions against Christian sites in southern Lebanon.