Lebanon hostage crisis 1991, Hezbollah had released the last hostage in return for Israel's release of imprisoned Shi'ites. Lebanon hostage crisis The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At least eight hostages died in captivity; some were murdered, while others died from lack of adequate medical attention to illnesses. Those taking responsibility for the kidnapping used different names, but the testimony of former hostages indicates that almost all the kidnappings
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.