Position of Lebanon in the 2006 Lebanon War had made comments on television saying that Israel should consider a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. On 13 July, a prominent Lebanese Druze member of parliament, Walid Jumblatt, criticized Hezbollah in an interview with the French daily "Le Figaro": "Hezbollah played a very dangerous game by kidnapping these two soldiers. ... Israel has withdrawn from Lebanon. These kidnappings took place outside our country's borders. Hezbollah is raising the stakes, with the support of Iran and Syria, which in the past year has become a satellite state of Tehran. … Hezbollah will have to explain itself to the Lebanese. ... [We need
Democratic Left Movement (Lebanon) Atallah was expelled from the party on 26 September of that year. These activists who split from the LCP along with the leftist student groups and the intellectuals with no prior affiliation to the LCP, formed the Democratic Left Movement. An initial "temporary preparatory committee" for the movement emerged, which issued statements critical of Syrian intervention in Lebanon and called for the birth of a new left. In September 2004, the Democratic Left Movement was officially established. On 17 October, at a ceremony commemorating its foundation attended by figures across the political spectrum, Elias Atallah declared that the movement was