 During her years of study in Beirut, Hijab worked as a journalist, but she left Lebanon after the onset of the Lebanese Civil War.She traveled first to Qatar, and then to London, England, where she became the Editor-in-Chief of "Middle East Magazine" and appeared frequently in the media as a commentator on Middle East affairs.In 1989, Hijab moved to the United States, where she worked for 10 years as a development specialist for the United Nations Development Programme in New York City.