'When the killer cooks': Viral image shows Israeli soldier cooking in southern Lebanese home

A viral image of an Israeli soldier cooking inside the kitchen of a home in southern Lebanon has sparked strong criticism online.  

The image of the female soldier smiling with ingredients spread across the table was shared on Sunday by Bint Jbeil News, a Lebanese publisher. 

The image was reportedly taken in Bint Jbeil, the town in the Nabatiye governorate of southern Lebanon. 

“Violation in its full ‘elegance’,” the publisher captioned the picture on Instagram. “When the killer and occupier cook in the kitchen of the land’s people.” 

Diana Moukalled, a Lebanese journalist and filmmaker, said the image was an insult “to people’s memory [and] dignity”. 

“Here we're talking about a house that still has its greenery, still has the life of its family, but they alone are the forcibly absent ones,” she wrote on X. 

“They are forbidden from returning, while a soldier from the occupation army enters the place, picks the produce, cooks, and laughs as if the house has no owners.

نشرت مجندة اسرائيلية صورا لها من منزل جنوبي..
أكثر ما يوجع في هذه الصورة أنها تجعل الفقدان قاسياً إلى حدّ لا يُحتمل. الحديث هنا عن بيت ما زالت فيه خضاره، ما زالت فيه حياة أهله، لكنهم هم وحدهم الغائبون قسراً. هم ممنوعون من العودة، فيما جندية من جيش الاحتلال تدخل المكان، تقطف… pic.twitter.com/D73DjxZ9xJ

— ديانا مقلد Diana Moukalled (@dianamoukalled) April 19, 2026

“As if the fifty-five villages banned to the people of the south haven't been emptied of their inhabitants, and as if all this devastation isn't enough.”

Moukalled said the scene summed up Israeli crimes, from uprooting people from their lands to turning their homes into “a free-for-all space for the invaders”. 

“This is occupation and deliberate insult to people's memory, dignity, and their inherent right to return to what they planted with their own hands.”

A Palestinian user on X compared the image to the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes to make way for the creation of Israel. 

“Remember how our grandmothers used to tell us they left the food cooking on the stove when they fled their homes during the Nakba?” Abier Khatib wrote. 

“Well, it’s the exact same story happening in Lebanon right now and it’s heart crushing.”

Israel has been pummelling Lebanon since US-Israeli strikes on Iran killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, prompting a cross-border rocket attack by Hezbollah in retaliation on 2 March. 

Systematic destruction

Since 2 March, Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,294 people in Lebanon, including 100 rescue workers and healthcare personnel, and wounded 7,544, the Lebanese health ministry said. 

About 1.2 million people have also been displaced nationwide. 

'Remember how our grandmothers used to tell us they left the food cooking on the stove when they fled their homes during the Nakba'

- Abier Khatib, Palestinian activist

A 10-day pause in hostilities in Lebanon began on Thursday last week. 

During the war, Israel destroyed all bridges over the Litani, including the key Qasmiyeh bridge, severing the last link between the south and the rest of the country. 

Israel has continued to systematically demolish civilian buildings in southern Lebanon during the ceasefire, according to a report in Haaretz on Sunday.  

Israeli commanders said civilian engineering tools had been brought into the area, including excavators, and were being operated by paid Israeli civilian contractors.  

One source said that schools and civilian sites were being flattened as part of an Israeli policy to “clean up the area”. The method is modelled on Israeli activities in Gaza during the genocide which began in October 2023.  

Last month, Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said: “All houses in villages near the border in Lebanon will be demolished in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun models in Gaza.”  

On Sunday, 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.

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.