'Angry Birds'-style video caricaturing Hezbollah draws rebuke

On social media, Hezbollah's supporters condemned what they considered the ridiculing of leader Naim Qassem, who is also a Shia cleric, with some reacting by sharing images insulting Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai, the highest Christian authority in Lebanon.

The video, shared by the LBCI channel on Friday, depicts Qassem addressing his fighters -- with all of them depicted as birds from the popular videogame -- as they fight the Israeli army, portrayed as the series' green pigs.

The channel said it deleted the video later on Saturday, after being summoned by Lebanon's judiciary.

Hezbollah said, in a statement, that the video contained "offensive and cheap insults that degrade political discourse to a repulsive level".

The group also called on supporters not to be "drawn into" the controversy "orchestrated by the enemies of the resistance".

LBCI was founded in the 1980s by the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party opposed to Hezbollah.

However, the channel distanced itself from the party years ago and has been trying to present a more independent image.

"Before our holy symbols and our sheikh (Qassem), all holy symbols fall," one Hezbollah supporter wrote on X, referring to Maronite Patriarch Rai.

After the wave of insults, Rai was contacted by several officials and religious leaders criticising the rhetoric.

President Joseph Aoun in a statement on Saturday "condemned and rejected any attacks on the heads of Christian and Muslim religious communities and spiritual figures in Lebanon".

He also urged the public "to refrain from personal insults, given the negative repercussions of such practices, especially in the current circumstances the country is going through, which require broad national solidarity".

Lebanese Parliament Speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri condemned "the campaigns of insult and attacks against religious and national symbols, regardless of their source or the means used, whether in the media or online".

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, meanwhile, told citizens "to exercise the utmost awareness and reject hate speech to prevent dragging the country into an atmosphere of disastrous strife".

Despite the relative freedom of expression enjoyed in Lebanon in comparison to other Arab countries, the media, artists and comedians have faced harassment over work deemed by some to be offensive to political or religious figures.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East conflict on March 2 when it fired rockets towards Israel in support of its backer Iran.

More than 2,600 people have since been killed in Israeli attacks, according to Lebanese authorities, with the violence ongoing despite a fragile truce in place since April 17.