Gabriel claims to have lost everything in that war, surviving only with her life. She recalls that she was forced to live in a small, underground bunker for seven years with no sanitation, electricity or even running water. Gabriel says that she was saved, along with her family, by Israelis when the Israeli army invaded Lebanon. Gabriel is quoted speaking of this experience:  “I was amazed that the Israelis were providing medical treatment to Palestinian and Muslim gunmen...These Palestinians and Muslims were sworn, mortal enemies, dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of Jews. Yet, Israeli doctors and nurses worked feverishly to save their lives. Each patient was treated solely according to the nature of his or her injury. The doctor treated my mother before he treated an Israeli soldier lying next to her because her injury was more severe than his. The Israelis did not see religion, political affiliation, or nationality. They saw only people in need, and they helped.”

After fleeing Lebanon, Gabriel lived for five years in Israel, from 1984 through 1988. In1984, after graduating from high school, Gabriel took a business administration course at Young Women’s Christian Association. In 1986, she began her career as an anchor of Middle East Television (METV) under the pseudonym Nour Semaan. During this time, Gabriel worked as a news anchor for the Arabic-Language evening news broadcast, World News. After marrying an American who had worked with her in Israel she immigrated to the United States. Gabriel started a television production and advertisement company in her new country and developed affection for America saying “I lost Lebanon, my country of birth, to radical Islam. I do not [intend] to lose my adopted country America”.

According to the New York Times, Gabriel presents a portrait of Islam so thoroughly bent on destruction and domination that it is unrecognizable to those who study or practice the religion.” They go on to say, Gabriel "insists that she is singling out only radical Islam or Muslim extremists not the vast majority of Muslims or their faith. And yet, in her speeches and her two books, she leaves the opposite impression.”  Indeed, the titles of Gabriel’s books point to generalization of a wide swath of humanity: “Because They Hate:  A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns Americans” and “They Must Be Stopped:  Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It”. The Washington Post describes her two books as "alarmist tracts about Islam."

In 2009, Gabriel stated that Islam "promotes intolerance and violence", and that "Moderate Muslims must organize and engage those enlightened, educated and westernized Muslims in the community to begin a dialogue to discuss the possibility of reform in Islam just as Christianity and Judaism have been reformed." 

Gabriel has been quoted as saying that a “cancer called ‘Islamofacism” permeates a Muslim world in which “extreme is mainstream.” In June 2014, Gabriel said that "The radicals are estimated to be between 15 to 25 percent, according to all intelligence services around the world", an assertion that was later found to be inaccurate by the Christian Science Monitor.