JERUSALEM -- Defense specialist Zeev Schiff, one of Israel's most respected and well-known journalists, died Tuesday, his newspaper, the Haaretz daily, announced. He was 74.
The newspaper did not disclose a cause of death.
Mr. Schiff covered military and defense issues for Haaretz for more than 50 years, serving as the paper's defense editor in recent years. He published numerous books about regional military and security issues and contributed articles to Foreign Policy, National Interest, the
"There was almost nothing about the security equation between Arabs and Israel, Israel and the US, or the military that Zeev didn't know, understand, know the human story behind, and understand the strategic value of," said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where Mr. Schiff was a fellow.
David Landau, editor-in-chief of Haaretz, called Mr. Schiff "supremely important" to the paper.
Born in France in 1932, Mr. Schiff immigrated to Israel in 1935. Haaretz said Mr. Schiff served as an intelligence officer in the Israeli military and studied Middle Eastern affairs at Tel Aviv University. After joining Haaretz in 1955, Mr. Schiff served as military correspondent in Vietnam, the former Soviet Union, Cyprus, and Ethiopia.
His book "October Earthquake and the Yom Kippur War" earned Israel's highest journalism award, the Sokolov Prize. His 1990 book about the first Palestinian uprising, co-authored with Ehud Yaari, became an international best-seller.
Mr. Schiff was buried in Tel Aviv yesterday. He leaves his wife and two sons.