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RIYADH: As critics accuse Western media of complicity in Gaza’s “genocide” by echoing Israeli narratives and playing down its deadly attacks on local journalists, CNN’s Nic Robertson says international media shut out by Israel depend on local reporters who risk their lives to tell the story.

Appearing on the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” Robertson, CNN’s international diplomatic editor and a veteran war correspondent, sought to explain Western media coverage of the war in Gaza.

“I think we’re doing a huge amount to report on the suffering of Palestinians,” he said.

“We have teams in Gaza who are reporting for us, who we liaise with daily, hourly, and who help us get that frontline reporting that we can’t do ourselves. And they’re hugely courageous and do a tremendous job of bringing the absolute despair and destruction that’s going on in Gaza.”

Since the war began in October 2023, Israeli authorities have prevented foreign journalists from entering Gaza, allowing only a handful of tightly controlled visits accompanied by its troops.

To illustrate the difficulties of covering the war remotely, Robertson recalled reporting on a young child who died from starvation — a case Israel disputed.

“I was sitting in Israel reporting on the death through starvation of a young child,” he told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen. “Israel disputes that the child died of starvation, disputes the narrative that comes from Gaza — says that this is all sort of Hamas propaganda.”

The story, he added, was emotionally wrenching. “It was hugely difficult to see the images and to tell that story because it’s emotionally hard. And you can only begin to imagine what it’s like for those families inside of Gaza.”

Israel began bombarding Gaza after a Hamas-led Palestinian militant attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. 

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has since killed more than 68,500 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the enclave.

Human rights groups and the UN accuse Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war by systematically restricting food and aid. International organizations say famine and widespread malnutrition are direct consequences of these policies.

Of the more than 400 reported starvation deaths, at least 151 children have died from acute malnutrition since the start of the war — most of them in 2025 — according to Palestinian health authorities.

Even after a fragile ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, Gaza remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.

In September, UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan called the conflict “the deadliest ever for journalists.”

Robertson, who has reported from Sarajevo, Kabul and beyond, agreed that Gaza is the most dangerous and restrictive environment he has seen. Yet, he noted, as in most wars, it is local journalists who bear the greatest risk.

Asked if Gaza was the most dangerous and restrictive environment that he had ever reported from, he said: “It is. And I think as with all the journalist casualties we see around the world, in whichever conflict, almost invariably, they are the local journalists.

“That’s what we’re seeing in Gaza again — it’s the local journalists who are paying the highest price to try to bring the state of the war that’s developing and enveloping them and their lives and their families to the rest of the world. And that’s something all of us, who would like to be in Gaza reporting, deeply respect. It’s the ultimate sacrifice. In this profession, too many people have to pay that price.”

By mid-September, 252 Palestinian journalists had been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to UN figures. A separate count by Shireen.ps, a site named after slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, put the toll at more than 270.

Under international humanitarian law, journalists enjoy civilian protection unless they take direct part in hostilities.

But Israel has been accused of deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza.

Investigations by press freedom groups, the UN, and major media outlets indicate Israeli forces have deliberately attacked reporters.

Between October 2023 and January 2025, Reporters Without Borders filed five complaints with the International Criminal Court, providing evidence that the Israeli military committed war crimes against journalists in Gaza.

Israel denies deliberately targeting reporters, saying deaths occurred during operations against Hamas or involved individuals allegedly linked to militant groups.

Asked whether Israel has shown disregard for journalists’ lives and should face accountability, Robertson said the allegations are difficult to verify.

“Israel has named some of the journalists or said that some of the journalists that it’s killed belong to Hamas,” he said. “The proof of that hasn’t been put in a public forum for complete scrutiny.

“And part of the scrutiny that a journalist like me would want to probe those kinds of allegations is to be there on the ground and talk to people on the ground,” he added. “So, Israel’s allegations are hard to prove or disprove.”

In August, seven journalists were killed when Israel targeted their tent in Gaza City, drawing condemnation from the UN and global media organizations.

Israel claimed one of them, Al Jazeera’s Anas Al-Sharif, was “the head of a Hamas terrorist cell,” but the BBC reported the military offered little evidence. The Committee to Protect Journalists’ CEO Jodie Ginsberg told the British outlet there was “no justification” for Al-Sharif’s killing.

Robertson said friends of the slain journalists “would dispute what Israel has said,” adding that some journalists have been hit in follow-up strikes — a tactic not uncommon in war.

“Over the past month or so, where a group of journalists went to report on one strike and then Israel had a follow-on strike.”

On Aug. 25, a double Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed 20 people, including five journalists from the Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye.

“This is not uncommon in war, to have follow-on strikes, but the result of it was very clear that the journalists and recovery workers who’d gone there in the immediate aftermath of the first strike were again targeted,” Robertson said.

“It’s increasingly the case that journalists will be caught up in those strikes.”

Still, he emphasized, the inability to investigate Israel’s claims firsthand is deeply frustrating.

“I think when it comes to the allegations that Israel has made that journalists were members of proscribed organizations like Hamas, is a very frustrating one for journalists stuck on the outside who would like to do due diligence and follow up on those allegations and report the findings,” he said.

“If Israel makes those allegations, then perhaps it could provide the ability for reporters to test their claims — and that’s just not possible right now.”

When asked whether CNN journalists feel frustrated by the access restrictions, Robertson said such limits are not new — but Gaza is uniquely closed off.

“I think back to other wars we’ve covered that have been dangerous,” he said. “And I think back, perhaps to 1992 to 1995, in Bosnia, the journalists there were able to get into Sarajevo, a city under siege.

“The besieging forces wouldn’t allow journalists easy access to get in. They controlled the access, but they still allowed journalists to get through the front lines. It wasn’t an easy process.”

However, he said that while the situation was “fraught with danger,” it was “perhaps not the same dangers that exist in Gaza” where the situation is “absolutely beyond that in the realm that we can’t get there.”

In terms of access, he said: “We’re not permitted either from crossing from Egypt or crossing from Israel. And that’s a frustration because to be there, you feel that you can tell the story and bring the voices from the story.”

Still, Robertson said, those voices “are not extinguished,” thanks to local journalists who continue to report despite immense danger, but the restriction “limits the world’s understanding and scale of what is happening.”

On a personal note, Robertson spoke of how he copes with decades of war coverage — from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and now Gaza.

“I’m incredibly lucky,” he said.

“I have a very, very supportive family. My wife is a journalist. Well, was a journalist. We met while at CNN during the buildup to the first Gulf War.

“Indeed, she came with me to Baghdad when the first Gulf War started. We’ve seen each other in difficult situations.

“Our daughters, who are now grown and one of them is a journalist as well, understand what it is I do,” he added, stressing that “being able to go home and just be dad and a husband is incredibly grounding.”

Still, he admitted that the work has left emotional scars. “When you watch suffering up close and you talk to people who’ve suffered, who’ve lost loved ones, I kind of feel that the burden of that is accumulative.

“Our family jokes that if we’re sitting at home watching a movie, I’m the first one to have tears rolling down my cheeks. And I don’t think I was like that 20 or 30 years ago,” he said.

Robertson said his earliest assignments remain the most vivid, including in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s early years in the mid-1990s.

“Just what the utter desperation of families whose villages had been destroyed, mud homes reduced,” he said. “The mud on the floor and a man with a shovel one October, then digging through, looking for the remains of his family’s possessions in what was left of his house and pulling out an old iron bedstead.”

“For me, it just told me about the appalling paucity and tragedy that accompany war the world over.”

Reflecting on journalism’s future amid many challenges, including from artificial intelligence, Robertson said serious reporting and serious audiences “go hand in hand.” 

“There is an appetite for good, trustworthy journalism,” he added. “And I think if we can keep delivering that, there’ll be an audience that wants it.”

“And I suppose one of my takeaway experiences from the last 30 years or so — and it’s a shame that this is the experience in a way — but people value news more when it’s really important to them. And here I’m thinking of countries in conflict.”

He cited the example of the four-day war between India and Pakistan in May. “There was an immense appetite in the region there, both in India and Pakistan, and more broadly in the region, for journalism like ours at CNN that was seen as nonpartisan,” he said.

“So, absolutely, there is an appetite for what we offer, which is trustworthy, unbiased, unvarnished news reporting. And we stay true to that, and we’ll have to continue to stay true to that.”

Robertson added: “They’ll come to us when they realize they need us. And that may take a number of people in their tens of millions to stray into the rumor mills and the twisting that’s available on everywhere they turn on their social media feeds.

“But people will trust people who are trustworthy. That’s my core belief, and that’s never been shaken by this, and I don’t believe it will change.”