David Hirst

David John Hirst (26 May 1936 – 22 September 2025) was a British journalist and foreign correspondent who reported extensively on the Middle East. Based for most of his career in Beirut, he wrote for The Guardian from 1964 to 2001 and continued contributing until 2013. He was described as the paper’s "authoritative correspondent" through four decades of change in the region. Hirst focused heavily on the Arab–Israeli conflict and was described as having an academic approach to journalism. His books include The Gun and the Olive Branch, a history of the Arab–Israeli conflict, and Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East (2010).

Early life and education Hirst was born on 26 May 1936 in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, England. He attended Rugby School before his then-compulsory military service took him to Egypt and Cyprus at the age of 18. Between 1954 and 1956 he lived in the Middle East, traveling widely in the Levant before leaving shortly before the outbreak of the Suez War. Reflecting on this period, he later remarked that he had arrived with little knowledge of the Middle East, "hardly [knowing] the difference between Israelis and Arabs." Hirst then studied at the University of Oxford. In 1959, he returned to Lebanon and enrolled at the American University of Beirut, where he studied until 1963 and learned Arabic.

Career In 1964, Hirst began writing for The Guardian, based in Beirut and Cyprus, a position he held until 2001. He continued to contribute occasionally, including obituaries, until 2013. He also wrote for The Christian Science Monitor, The Irish Times, the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, Newsday, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Middle East Eye and the Daily Star in Lebanon.

Hirst focused heavily on the Arab–Israeli conflict.

Personal life In 1995, Hirst married Amina, a social anthropologist of Egyptian heritage. . . Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East (2010). . . حذار من الدول الصغيرة: لبنان، ساحةُ معارك الشرق الأوسط (Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East, Arabic ed.). Rimal Publications, 2013.