ABC correspondent Nick Dole reflects on the challenges of covering the Hamas terror attack and Israel-Gaza conflict

Europe correspondent Nick Dole was the first ABC reporter to arrive in Israel in the hours after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack. Over the next two weeks, he and camera operator Mitch Woolnough and producer Orly Halpern travelled close to the Israel/Gaza border to cover the story as more ABC staff were deployed to other locations. Nick gave ABC Backstory an insight into the challenges of covering this confronting story and filing from a conflict zone. 

Can you outline how you were first alerted to the Hamas attack on Israel and deployed to cover the story?

It was a Saturday morning in London, and I'd just woken up.

I always check my phone the second I wake up, in case I've missed a call or email from the foreign desk in Australia.

I saw a few different breaking news alerts about Hamas gunmen having infiltrated Israel.

It seemed really serious, but I figured it would soon be contained.

Having covered the conflict in 2021, I'd seen firsthand how many layers of security the IDF had near the border.

Pretty soon it became clear the situation was far more serious than anyone could have imagined.

Hamas's attack was widespread, and Israel had started bombing targets in Gaza in response.

Our Jerusalem-based team was away, so I was the correspondent that got the call.

A few hours later, I was on a plane to Tel Aviv.

Flights were hard to come by, and the captain told us we may not be able to land because of the continued rocket fire from Gaza.

There was no wi-fi, so for about four and a half hours I had no idea what was going on.

Perhaps it was better that way as flying into a major story is nerve-wracking enough.

Despite the threat from the rockets, the airspace remained open and we landed.

Shortly after we got off the plane, we were suddenly ordered to lie down on the tarmac.

An air raid alert had activated and soon after, we heard explosions in the sky.

Israel's Iron Dome air defence system was shooting rockets out of the sky above the airport.

Some of the passengers around me were crying.

It was really scary for the children, in particular.

While I was lying on the ground, I filmed a piece to camera on my phone, which I filed for our blog.

I was lucky to have made it in.

Other colleagues from the ABC and other networks had their flights cancelled or turned around.

I raced to our bureau in Jerusalem and from the taxi I tried to catch up on the four hours I'd missed, before getting on air with ABC radio and the ABC News Channel.

I had no camera operator to start with, so I filmed crosses myself using my phone.

Fortunately, the ABC's Middle East producer, Orly Halpern, was in Jerusalem and she was a huge source of support and local knowledge.

Soon after, colleagues from Istanbul, Jakarta, Bangkok and Australia arrived to boost our coverage.

For the first few days, we based ourselves in Jerusalem, doing day trips south towards the Gaza border to report from the communities that had been terrorised by the Hamas militants.

But as time went on, and an Israeli ground attack seemed increasingly likely, we decided to split up.

Cameraman Mitch Woolnough and I moved south to Ashdod, along with our global affairs editor John Lyons, who'd flown in from Sydney.

Some of the team remained in Jerusalem, while others went north to the Lebanon border where fighting was also intensifying.

Staying closer to Gaza put us in a much better position to monitor the Israeli military's movements and report from the sites of Hamas's attacks, but it also put us at more risk.

At night, we could see the rockets being launched from Gaza.

Depending on their trajectory, the sirens would sound and we'd have to race to the stairwell of our hotel away from the windows.

Iron Dome shot most of the rockets out of the sky, but not all of them.

I slept almost fully clothed at night because there was really no time to get dressed if an air raid siren sounded.

And there was no way of knowing how long you'd have to spend in the stairwell.

What have been the challenges of covering this story?

In the first few days after Hamas's attack, personal safety was a big challenge.

We wanted to get close to the scene of the attacks but there was a risk Hamas gunmen could still be hiding.

We were still getting reports of gunfire in some areas.

As we drove along the roads near the Gaza border, we came across cars that had been attacked.

They were riddled with bullets.

The people in them were almost certainly killed or taken hostage.

While the main roads felt pretty safe, there were times when we had to take more isolated roads.

At one point, as we were trying to navigate around roadblocks and reach the site of the music festival massacre, the GPS wanted to send us down an isolated dirt track lined by greenhouses and farm sheds.

It seemed like an ideal place for a gunman to hide.

I rarely rely on "gut feelings" but on this occasion mine was saying "turn around and leave".

We discussed it as a group and decided to turn around and abandon our plans that day.

On another occasion, we had been filming at the hospital in Ashkelon, interviewing survivors from the music festival massacre.

We'd just gotten out of the car at the new location when we saw and heard rockets coming from Gaza.

I started filming them on my phone because they seemed to be flying well clear of us.

But then, I saw the arc of some rockets change and they appeared to be coming in our direction.

We took cover between a brick wall and our car.

There were explosions everywhere as Iron Dome shot dozens of rockets out of the sky.

It was a pretty scary moment, but I still had my phone in my hand, so I started filming a piece to camera.

If we were in the middle of a rocket attack, I figured we may as well document it.

Once the attack was over and we'd confirmed everyone was OK, we decided to leave that part of Ashkelon as quickly as we could.

I called the international team in Australia to tell them we were all safe and not to worry.

Before we start filming each day, we do risk assessments to discuss the potential threats we might face.

We knew being in Ashkelon carried an elevated risk, because Hamas had been targeting the city and it's only about 12 kilometres from the Gaza border.

While we could never eliminate risk, we were able to manage it.

We had flak jackets and helmets and agreed not to hang around any longer than was absolutely required.

Most importantly, we had a reason to be there.

We wanted to speak to survivors of the music festival attack and that's where they were being taken for medical care.

We always have to assess whether a story will justify an extra layer of risk.

This story undoubtedly did.

After discussing it as a group, we decided we were comfortable being there.

Another challenge in covering this story was secrecy.

As time went on and our focus turned to Israel's impending ground assault, the IDF became increasingly determined to prevent us from filming their military build-up near the Gaza border.

Sometimes we were left alone, but other times we were told to leave the moment we started filming.

Some soldiers even tried to make us delete everything we had shot.

Fortunately, Orly, speaking Hebrew, was able to smooth things over.

Another major difficulty was telling the story of what was happening in Gaza without being there personally.

As Israel stepped up its attacks, the story increasingly moved towards the dire humanitarian situation there.

We could hear the explosions and see the smoke clouds, but we couldn't be there ourselves.

From October 7 the borders were closed, so we relied on news agencies and also employed freelancers in Gaza to try to tell that crucial part of the story.

Some of the people we worked with lost family members in air strikes, yet they still had the courage and determination to keep working.

It's a distressing story to cover, how have you managed that?

In the days after Hamas's attacks, we met a lot of people in Israel whose loved ones were missing, and either feared dead or taken hostage.

I often speak to people who've been affected by horrible events, but these people had a whole extra layer of pain to deal with. Uncertainty.

They didn't know if their loved ones were already dead or were enduring more horrors in Gaza.

It seemed like an incredibly lonely situation to be in.

Many didn't know what to do and were being given little information, so they spoke to the media.

It was both confronting to hear their stories and humbling to be trusted to tell them.

Visiting the site of the music festival massacre was also especially confronting.

All over the campsite, there were reminders of the young people who were brutally murdered.

Eskies, camping chairs, swags and tents were all abandoned as people ran for their lives.

I can only imagine how confusing and terrifying those moments must have been.

That will always stay with me.

Watching videos of the attacks was one of the worst parts of the assignment.

I had to watch a certain amount to understand what had happened on October 7, but I tried to limit my exposure.

I was grateful there was an ABC team back in Australia who were also going through some of the videos and helping decide what to include in the stories.

A lot of it was too distressing to publish.

Then, as Israel's air strikes on Gaza intensified, there were equally confronting images.

In particular, images of lifeless children being dug from the rubble or being brought into hospital covered in blood and utterly shell-shocked.

They couldn't possibly understand what was happening to them, nor did they have any control over the situation.

Many of those images were captured by journalists and photographers who risked their lives to bring those stories to light.

More than 50 journalists and media workers have been killed in the conflict so far, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

To be a reporter in Gaza right now requires incredible bravery.

To sit in relative safety in Israel and download those images, knowing how much danger people faced to deliver them, fills you with a certain sense of guilt.