Lebanese Army Day ad shows photo of IDF soldier

An entertainment company in Lebanon accidentally featured a photo appearing to praise an Israeli soldier, as part of an advertisement campaign coinciding with Lebanese Army Day, and quickly apologized profusely.

The Virgin Megastore’s Lebanese service Ticketing Box Office removed the ad, showing an IDF soldier looking into binoculars accompanied by the text “Keep your eyes on us, o hero,” after it was ridiculed on social media when it was released on Monday.

“We apologize for the image that was wrongly published and we regret the systematic campaign that is targeting us as a result of this image whose intention was to celebrate the Lebanese army on its anniversary,” the company said in a statement.

Concluding with criticism of those who are “questioning our patriotism,” the company declared: “Great people plan, big people lead, heroes are victorious, and cowards take advantage, long live the Lebanese army and love live Lebanon.”

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Lebanese Army Day commemorates fallen Lebanese soldiers and marks the formation of country’s fighting force when the joint French-British Command in 1943 decreed that responsibility for armed units were to be handed over to the Independent Government of Lebanon.

This year’s official message to Lebanese soldiers was not as complimentary to Israel as the removed ad seemed to imply.

“You have preserved national sovereignty and Lebanon’s regional and international standing through your deployment and tenacity throughout the southern border in the confrontation with the Israeli enemy which is eager to take hold of our land and oil wealth,” said the Lebanese Army Chief of Staff Jean Kahwagi in an address to soldiers on Monday.

Israel and Lebanon have fought three major conflicts in the past 40 years and still remain officially at war.

Most recently, in 2006, the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah carried out a cross-border raid into Israel in which three soldiers were killed and two — Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev — were captured. The raid sparked the 34-day Second Lebanon War, during which thousands of rockets fell in Israeli territory and the IDF invaded southern Lebanon in an effort to destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure.

The war claimed the lives of 165 Israelis, including 44 civilians. Over 1,100 Lebanese, including both Hezbollah fighters and civilians, were killed.