Veteran reporter Helen Thomas, who has covered the White House since the John F. Kennedy administration, is retiring immediately following her controversial statements about Israel, Hearst Newspapers reports.

Thomas, 89, became a columnist for Hearst newspapers after leaving UPI, where she worked for decades.

Updated at 12:23 p.m. ET: In comments captured on video by rabbilive.com, Thomas says Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine," suggesting they go to Germany, Poland or the U.S.

The controversy prompted Thomas to be dropped by her speaker's bureau. She also agreed not to deliver a commencement speech at Walt Whitman High School in suburban Bethesda, Md., the Associated Press reports.

Thomas later wrote on her website that "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians."

Thomas did not appear today at the morning White House press briefing.

Asked today about her marks, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called them "offensive and reprehensible" and added that they "do not reflect certainly the opinion of most of the people here and certainly not of the administration."

Thomas, according to excerpts from her biography, is the daughter of a Lebanese immigrant who came to the United States in 1892.

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(Posted by Doug Stanglin)