Channel 4 News foreign correspondent Secunder Kermani sees the Israel-Gaza conflict as a “big test” for journalists and said he hopes they “manage to do it justice”.
But he said they “won’t feel satisfied” that they are doing the “job we should be doing” until they can get into the Palestinian territory.
Kermani was speaking to Press Gazette days after he signed an open letter from 55 journalists calling on the Israeli and Egyptian authorities to let them into Gaza to bolster the efforts of Palestinian journalists who are being killed in unprecedented numbers.
Soon afterwards he was named the Network Television Journalist of the Year at the RTS Television Journalism Awards, receiving recognition for his work on the conflict as well as his reporting from Myanmar, Iran and Pakistan in his first 18 months at Channel 4 News.
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Kermani joined Channel 4 News in the summer of 2022 after working as the BBC‘s Pakistan and Afghanistan correspondent and helping to lead its reporting of the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 and previously reporting for Newsnight.
Journalists’ ‘duty’ is to go into Gaza
Kermani told Press Gazette the past five months reporting on what happened on 7 October in Israel and what has happened since in Gaza has been “really intense – and it’s very, very frustrating not to be able to be physically in Gaza”.
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He said it is the “duty” of international journalists “to be there, to bear witness, to document it”.
Kermani praised the “really brave” and “very talented” local Palestinian journalists who have been reporting from Gaza, mostly unable to leave, since 7 October.
But they have families to look after at the same time, he noted: “It’s kind of mind-boggling to me. So they need support and for the pressure not to be just on them.”
He added that Israeli spokespeople share a narrative that Palestinian journalists might not always be telling the truth because the Gaza Strip is controlled by Hamas.
“So, okay, let us go, we’re not beholden to anyone,” he said. “We’re not necessarily saying that’s true or not, but the best way to work out whether there are things that are being covered up or misrepresented is to allow international journalists from the major international organisations to go and to see things ourselves and to broadcast that to the world.”
Because of this, Kermani explained, many foreign correspondents are dissatisfied with what they have been able to report so far.
“There’s a lot of criticism, I think, of the mainstream media. I think we’re all alive to that.
“It’s tough because some of the stuff that you see on social media, so many people are getting their news from Gaza directly from social media and the images that come out are so horrific you can’t show them.
“We try and incorporate as much of that as possible but I think ultimately until we get there ourselves as well, I won’t feel satisfied that we’re doing the job that we should be doing and I know that all of my other colleagues across the industry feel the same.”
Kermani acknowledged that Israel’s position is that Gaza is too dangerous as an active war zone for journalists to be allowed in.
But he said: “It’s possible. But the suspicion is really going to be understandable that the real reason they don’t want international journalists there is because they don’t want the world to see in even greater detail what’s unfolding there and what they’re doing to people. I mean, that I think is going to be the conclusion that most people would draw, given the fact that you’re denying people who are experienced war correspondents who have been in war zones right across the world. I think it’s hard to escape that conclusion.”
Channel 4 News ‘thought long and hard’ about IDF embed
Kermani is one of several journalists that decided to do the next best thing and embed with the Israeli Defence Force on a trip into Gaza.
He and the Channel 4 News team “thought long and hard” before accepting the offer but decided it was their only way to give a “very brief glimpse into the conditions there”.
“Some people on social media criticised me and said ‘why did you go?’ You shouldn’t have gone’. We decided to go because we felt that it was at least a glimpse of what was happening on the ground.”
He said he “went in very much with the intention of robustly challenging and questioning the people who were taking us in”.
They also made clear to the Israelis they “wouldn’t accept any kind of censorship” other than a check to make sure no operationally sensitive images were used that could put security at risk – a normal condition for an escorted trip with military in a war zone.
“But it’s still really unsatisfying because when I went in for that report I could see, maybe 500 metres away from me, a long queue of Palestinians who were holding white flags and walking amidst the debris, going from the north of the Gaza strip to the south, in what the Israelis called a humanitarian corridor, what other people called the forced transfer of the population, an example of the collective punishment of the people of Gaza,” Kermani said.
“And I said to the Israelis, ‘can I just go over and talk to them?’ And they said no. And that is very unsatisfactory.
“One thing that we were able to do with that report, at least, was then use material gathered from that same road by Palestinian journalists that same day where they were able to speak to people so then get that perspective as well. But no, I think it’s unacceptable, really, that we haven’t been allowed in.
“I understand of course that there are dangers but there are dangers in conflicts across the world. At news organisations around the world no one goes out wanting to take an unnecessary risk. No one’s gung ho about these decisions, I think. It’s important that we’re there.”
Kermani confessed to briefly wondering if he could run over to the Palestinians he saw despite being told no. But he said: “I think that would be a very difficult thing to do, given how dangerous the situation is.
“I think you would want to go in with at least some degree of coordination where they know that there’s a journalist so you know you’re not just going to get fired at because someone thinks you’re up to some kind of suspicious activity.”
He learned this lesson on 8 October, the day after the Hamas attacks, after filming in southern Israel.
Although everything had seemed fine, the crew decided to stop and put their protective gear on and afterwards Kermani struggled to close the back of their van.
“And then all of a sudden I hear a shout and there’s four Israeli soldiers walking up the road just opposite me all with their guns trained on me,” he said. “And they’re gesturing for me to get down or just gesturing at me guns pointed. So I was like, you know, in my poshest British accent: ‘British journalist!’
“I realised that PPE didn’t have press written on it or anything. They just had a guy slamming a car boot frantically and what must have looked like a bulletproof vest… we all had to get out the van hands down on the floor and then it ended okay, but it was a reminder that things can get quite tense.”
Impartiality: ‘The more information you can give, the better’
Some media outlets, including the BBC, have been accused of being biased towards Israel since 7 October.
Asked about how he incorporates impartiality into his reporting, Kermani said: “It’s tough. It comes a bit naturally in a way because it would be a disservice to the audience to just not talk about 7 October.
“In the Israel-Palestinian conflict there’s always going to be a question of how far back do you go? Some Israelis often want to start the discussion from 7 October. Palestinians want to start discussions from much further back than that in terms of where the grievances lie. But I think the more information you can give, the better…”
One of the strengths of Channel 4 News, he added, is that it is an hour-long programme (compared to 30 minutes for BBC News at Ten or ITV News at Ten for example). This means there is more time for interviews with guests to give “a lot more of the history, a lot more of the context, a lot more of the debate and nuances around it”.
“You don’t have that same pressure to try and cram in 75 years or longer of a dispute into just one report where you’re also trying to talk about what’s happened that day,” he said, “because you can be like, right, I’m going to report on what I’ve seen or what we filmed today. And then I know that there’s going to be a guest who’s going to talk about settlements, or who’s going to talk about 7 October, or who’s going to talk about previous rounds of conflict in Gaza and the civilian death toll there.
“I know that overall the programme is going to be comprehensive.”
He added that the atrocities in Gaza are now receiving more coverage “because that’s what’s happening now. It doesn’t mean that we don’t ever talk about 7 October, especially when there’s more than 100 hostages still there. But fundamentally the main story around the world right now is what’s happening in Gaza.
“It is difficult because the atmosphere particularly on social media can be so toxic. And it’s depressing to see… it’s understandable that anger and passions are going to be inflamed, that emotions are going to run high. But to see some Israeli supporters try and dismiss grieving Palestinians as crisis actors, to see some Palestinian supporters try and downplay or be dismissive of what happened on October 7, it’s unpleasant.”
Talking about the pressure of reporting on a conflict where coverage is under particular scrutiny for bias, he said he noted there are “a lot of senior correspondents who seem to be toning down their social media activity, for example, just because it felt a lot to deal with and so I started doing that a bit as well myself.
“So there is a lot of pressure, but it’s also really important. It’s a big test and a big challenge for all of us and I hope we manage to do it justice.”
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