Allegations of war crimes in the 2006 Lebanon War in itself is not conclusive evidence of intent to use civilians as "human shields", any more than the presence of Israeli soldiers in a kibbutz is in itself evidence of the same war crime." There have been other reports of Hezbollah using civilians as human shields. On 12 July, the very same day that Hezbollah sparked the war by kidnapping the two Israeli soldiers, the Israeli government publicized photographic and video evidence of Hezbollah's human shield tactics. The Sunday Herald Sun printed pictures that were smuggled out of Lebanon. One showing militants in a Lebanese town riding a truck equipped
History of the Jews in Lebanon after similar movements in Italy and Germany, and Franco's Phalangist movement in Spain.) and played an instrumental role in the establishment of Lebanon as an independent state. During the Greater Lebanon period, two Jewish newspapers were founded, the Arabic language "Al-Alam al-Israili" (the Israelite World) and the French "Le Commerce du Levant", an economic periodical which still publishes (though it is now owned by non-Jews). The Jewish community of Beirut evolved in three distinct phases. Until 1908, the Jewish population in Beirut grew by migration from the Syrian interior and from other Ottoman cities like Izmir, Salonica, Istanbul, and Baghdad.