Channel 4 News wins Emmy for ‘Inside Gaza: Israel and Hamas at War’
Channel 4 News has been awarded the International Emmy for News for its reporting from Israel and Gaza.
The prestigious award for ‘Inside Gaza: Israel and Hamas at War’ follows industry recognition from Bafta and the Royal Television Society this year, with the searing eyewitness reporting of Yousef Hammash at the heart of the programme’s work.
The award reflected the first days of coverage filmed inside Gaza and across the region in the opening week of the conflict between Israel and Hamas following the October 7th attack on Israel.
It showcased the work of Channel 4’s foreign teams in Israel fronted by Matt Frei and Secunder Kermani, with US correspondent Siobhan Kennedy bringing the international reaction from Washington DC.
It also included a forensic minute-by-minute anatomy of Hamas’ attacks, reported by Kiran Moodley with Channel 4 News’ investigations unit in Grays Inn Road.
In accepting the award, Channel 4 News editor Esme Wren paid tribute to the programme’s network of independent reporters who are the lifeblood of the daily news programme, in particular Gazan filmmaker Yousef Hammash.
Speaking on the night Esme Wren said: “Eyewitness reporting is the very essence of what we do and this conflict has been so challenging because we, along with international journalists, have been banned from Gaza itself.
That’s why, in this period, we have had to work very closely with independent journalists and filmmakers, particularly in Gaza itself, to bear witness to the truth, to get to the heart of the story.
And on that note, I want to thank in particular Yousef Hammash who couldn’t be with us tonight. It’s to him we owe so much of the credit.”
The Emmy was also dedicated on the night to journalists and media workers killed covering this ongoing conflict, with the total number of dead now registered at 116.
Channel 4 News presenter Matt Frei who anchored the coverage in Israel told the awards audience:
“I want to honour our fellow nominees, especially Al Jazeera who have made an extraordinary commitment and have lost many of their colleagues in the war in Gaza. I want to remind you that 116 journalists have been killed in that war in the past year.
So whoever denigrates our profession we are there to bear witness and the more access we gain especially to places like Gaza the better.”
This is the second time Channel 4 News has achieved the Emmy, Bafta and RTS for news coverage in one cycle, after its Cambridge Analytica exposés in 2019.
Channel 4 News’ Emmy award winning entry will be available as a special film on 4 Streaming from Thursday 26 September.