David Hirst (journalist)

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 (1977), a history of the Arab–Israeli conflict, and Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East (2010).