The woman with a bias towards bloodshed

Gulf War soldiers reckoned that "when Kate Adie arrived we knew we were really in trouble". Residents of ethnic tension hotspots must feel the same way when they see Adie's BBC colleague Orla Guerin hop out of her armourplated car.

It is hard to turn on the television news at present without being struck by another of Guerin's distinctive reports from the West Bank. The ingredients, at the risk of generalisation, go something like this: the pop-pop of near gunfire, deserted streets viewed through a dusty windscreen, and jerky camera movements as the crew hurry away from a military patrol.

And always, or so it seems, there then follows some agonisingly personal interview, maybe with a heavily pregnant Palestinian woman whose journey to hospital has been blocked by Israeli soldiers, or with a grieving Israeli family whose son has just been killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber.

Orla Guerin does not do happy. With her deadpan, nasal delivery and her constant frown, she seems a perfect match for the grimness of her current story.

When Guerin's voice comes on the television, viewers of a nervous or emotional disposition may want to leave the room.

She has the same effect, it must be said, on some of those with a vested interest in Middle East politics. Her recent work has infuriated some supporters of Israel, who have been left with the unfortunate impression that she is biased in favour of the Palestinians. She vehemently denies any lack of balance. "We get feedback from both sides," she says. "It's part of the routine."

Guerin, 35, is a streetwise Dubliner (no relation to murdered Irish reporter Veronica Guerin) who joined the BBC in 1995, having previously worked with Ireland's state broadcaster RTE. She started her career in newspapers (Dublin's Sunday Tribune, among others) and at 23 became RTE's youngest foreign reporter when she was despatched to Eastern Europe.

In the past decade few trouble-spots have escaped her attention. She was in Grozny, Romania, the Basque country, did the end of the Soviet Union, popped up in Ethiopia, and made her name in the Balkans. The woman has a nose for ethnic misery. She is Irish, after all.

She has been through flak jackets way other people go through linen suits. "I got my first flak jacket from the Irish Army but they did not give me the armour plates that you slip into the vest. Without them the jacket was about as much use as a white handkerchief. I'm a bit more knowledgeable now and luckily the armour plates have become lighter. You cannot run very fast with a flak jacket on but sometimes you have to wear one. I have known colleagues who have died without them."

She certainly needed some body armour last week when her crew was shot at by an Israeli tank in the near-empty streets of Bethlehem.

Guerin, who is unmarried and has no children, takes what can perhaps be called a family approach to her blood-stained stories. Her common practice is to report the small, personal tales from the street. "I've found that people can relate to the individual stories, such as the mother who loses a child or the family that is grieving," she argues.

Her critics know that such tales make gripping television but fear that the emotive approach can be naive and can neglect the harsher realities of diplomatic power. "Orla is not good at the big picture," admits a friend, "but the BBC gives huge coverage to the politics of the region elsewhere in its coverage."

Fellow foreign correspondents are full of praise. The Evening Standard's Sam Kiley calls her "serious, brave, straight - and teetotal". Teetotal? "I'm the anti-stereotype, an Irish hack who doesn't drink," says Guerin, who is nevertheless a regular visitor to the bar at the Amerithecan Colony hotel in East Jerusalem, a clearing house for journalistic intelligence.

A source at CNN acknowledges Guerin's robust bloody-mindedness. She "never lets a border check stop her". One who has seen her in operation calls her "awesomely determined".

She says she is uneasy at being singled out for praise. "It takes about 10 people to get me on screen. I am currently one of five BBC reporters here and I am lucky to work with two incredible cameramen, an Australian called Sarge and a Palestinian called Jimmy." The hard-bitten Sarge is something of a legend. Any reporter who gets to work with him is considered to be at an immediate advantage.

In conversation Guerin's Dublin accent has a gaiety that is seldom present on air. Does she get demoralised reporting from war zones? "I think that we are all suffering from long-term depression. Every time you think the Middle East has reached rock bottom it drops to a new depth. Yes, it is tough. But this is one of the great stories and I have always been intrigued by the region."

She hopes to stay in Jerusalem for a good while. "But at this rate," says the abstemious Guerin, "it may yet turn me to strong drink."