We were saddened to learn of the passing of Dominique Roch, at the age of 70. For more than 25 years, between 1983 and 2010, she was one of RFI’s most expert journalists on the Near and Middle East.
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Based in Beirut, she covered the Lebanese war for RFI and other French-speaking media. In 1989, she joined the international service in Paris and was appointed permanent special envoy to Jerusalem in 2002.
Courageous in the field, always very well informed – she had a very good address book which allowed her to have exclusive information such as the Oslo Accords before anyone else – Dominique Roch covered with great professionalism and talent the rugged history of this region.
The testimonies and tributes from his RFI colleges are numerous, as evidenced by these, published in recent hours :
“ She brought to RFI one of the rare real scoops that I had the opportunity to experience in a newsroom, the announcement before everyone else on our discussion channels in Oslo between Israelis and Palestinians. The next day, many newspapers in France and elsewhere cited RFI as one of the sources of this information. Dominique has never taken pride in it, and has always remained absolutely discreet about this episode of her career. », says Pierre Ganz, its editor-in-chief at the time.
“ We had forged a friendship that transcended borders and ideologies », testifies Michel Paul, our correspondent in Jerusalem.
“ Alongside him, I covered one of the rare happy moments in Palestinian history: the return of Yasser Arafat to Gaza in July 1994. A moment of incredible jubilation in this open-air prison. A great, but short moment of joy and hope for Dominique and all Palestinians,” remembers Daniel Desesquelle.
In this interview with our colleagues at RTSDominique recounted his childhood and adolescence in Lebanon, his professional life since 1982, the wars, also fear and hopes for peace in the Middle East.