A Catholic school run by nuns in southern Lebanon has sustained significant damage amid Israeli strikes on the surrounding area, sparking outrage among Lebanese Christians and drawing fresh attention to the human cost of the continuing conflict in the region.
Footage circulating on social media shows extensive destruction around Antonine Sisters College in Nabatieh — a major town in a Hezbollah-heavy area near the Israeli border — with sections of perimeter walls collapsed, buildings pockmarked and rubble scattered across the compound. The school is run by the Antonine Sisters, a Catholic religious order, and serves a mixed student body that includes many Muslim pupils from the surrounding community.
Reports indicate that at least seven people were killed in a nearby building, including civilians and reportedly children, with additional strikes in the Nabatieh area causing further deaths and injuries. Paramedics are also reported among the casualties. While accounts differ on whether the school itself sustained a direct hit, the damage to the compound and its immediate surroundings is extensive.
The incident has provoked sharply divided reactions. Lebanese Christians and Catholic voices have condemned what they describe as an attack on a religious and educational site, with some drawing comparisons to earlier damage sustained by a Salvatorian Sisters convent and school in the village of Yaroun. Critics have accused Israel of deliberately targeting Christian heritage sites and civilian infrastructure.
Israel and its supporters counter that Hezbollah systematically embeds military assets within civilian areas across southern Lebanon, using populated towns, residential buildings and sites in close proximity to schools and religious institutions as cover for operations and rocket launch sites. The Israel Defence Forces have maintained in similar cases that strikes are directed at terror infrastructure, and that collateral damage to civilian structures results from Hezbollah’s use of those areas for military purposes.
The damage to Antonine Sisters College fits a pattern of mounting civilian harm amid what was supposed to be a fragile ceasefire. Ongoing low-level violations — including rocket fire, drone strikes and targeted military operations — have continued on both sides of the border since the ceasefire came into force, with civilians consistently bearing the heaviest toll.
