Cairo: Lebanese TV celebrity Najwa Qassim, famous for covering regional wars and hosting political talk shows, had died early Thursday in her Dubai house of a heart attack, her employer Al Arabiya TV network reported Thursday. She was 52.
Al Arabiya mourned the death of Najwa who had joined the network since its launch in 2003.
“While mourning colleague Najwa Qassim, Al Arabiya TV network remembers its long media career,” the network said in a statement.
Najwa covered for Al Arabiya wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Born in Lebanon on July 7, 1967, Najwa had worked for 11 years at the Lebanese Future TV before she later joined Al Arabiya and its sister news platform Al Arabiya Al Hadith.
In 2004, she survived a car bombing near the Al Arabiya office in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
During her career, she was awarded several media prizes.
Her death triggered an outpouring of tributes in her homeland and around the Arab world.
“A real and saddening shock that Najwa Qassim departs at the peak of her giving and youth,” tweeted Lebanon’s outgoing prime minister Saad Hariri.
Saudi Ambassador to the UAE, Turki Al Dakhil, also mourned her, calling her a “lady of lofty morals and professionalism”.