The BBC's North America correspondent, Kevin Connolly, is to succeed Tim Franks as the corporation's reporter in Jerusalem.

Mr Connolly has had a long career as a foreign correspondent, but has never previously worked in the Middle East.

An Oxford graduate, he worked in print journalism before joining the BBC in 1984.

In 1987, he was posted to Dublin to be the BBC's Irish correspondent, but moved to Warsaw only a year later. He then spent four years as Moscow correspondent, during which he covered the collapse of the Soviet Union and conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Chechnya.

As Paris correspondent in the 1990s, he covered the immediate aftermath of Princess Diana's death in a car crash in the French capital.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Connolly returned to the UK and reported from Northern Ireland, covering Tony Blair's peace negotiations and the Good Friday Agreement which marked the official end to the Troubles.

For the last three years he has been based in Washington. He will replace Jewish correspondent Tim Franks, who leaves Israel after more than three years to change direction and become a sports journalist.