BEIRUT (AP) — Mona Ziade, who covered major events out of the Middle East during the 1980s and '90s for The Associated Press, including the taking of Western hostages during Lebanon’s civil war and Arab-Israeli peace talks, died Tuesday. She was 65.
Ziade died at her home in Beirut from complications of lung cancer after undergoing treatment for months, her daughter, Tamara Blanche, said.
Ziade, a dual citizen of Lebanon and Jordan, launched her journalism
career with United Press International in Beirut in 1978 before joining the AP four years later. She spent much of her career covering Lebanon's 15-year-civil war and Palestinian affairs.
That included closely covering the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was based in Lebanon and later in Tunisia, delivering several scoops to the AP through her excellent source work within the group. When the PLO's chairman, Yasser Arafat, and Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, signed a historic peace accord at the White House in 1993, Ziade was there.
“Mona was a firecracker, a hard-charging young reporter in an international press corps replete with hard chargers and ambitious journalists,” said Robert H. Reid, the AP’s former Middle East regional editor, who recalled that her strong sources were a major asset both in breaking news and keeping AP's reporters safe.
While covering Lebanon’s civil war, Ziade’s boss, the AP’s chief Middle East correspondent Terry Anderson, was kidnapped in Beirut in 1985. He was held for seven years, becoming one of the longest-held American hostages in history.
Months after Anderson’s kidnapping, the AP moved its Middle East headquarters from Beirut to Cyprus’ capital, Nicosia. Ziade moved there in 1986 and later married longtime AP correspondent Ed Blanche, who served as the agency’s Middle East editor for 10 years.
Ziade left the AP in 1996 to resettle with her family back in Beirut. She and Blanche helped relaunch Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper, which had ceased publishing at the height of the civil war. Ziade served as the English-language daily’s national editor before becoming its managing editor.
She left the Daily Star in 2003 and went to work as a communications officer for the World Bank's Lebanon office.
“Mom carved the path for a lot of women to pursue careers in journalism and social justice. It brought her immense joy and pride to see the new generation stepping up to the plate and pushing Lebanon and the region forward in this new climate,” her daughter said.
Ziade was born in Benghazi, Libya, on Dec. 23, 1959, according to her daughter.
Before starting her career, Ziade studied communications and political science at Beirut University College, which is now known as Lebanese American University.
Ed Blanche died in Beirut in 2019 after a long battle with cancer. The couple is survived by their daughter, Tamara, and Ed Blanche's two sons from a previous marriage, Jay and Lee.
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This story has been updated to correct Ziade’s age to 65, not 66.
