Editor’s Note: For the latest information, subscribe to updates from our full coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
As events unfold with lightning speed in Israel and the Palestinian territories, The Globe will be covering it extensively. Three of our most experienced foreign correspondents spent the start of the conflict on the ground speaking to officials and sources, and one of our staff photographers captured indelible images of a region at war.
Mark MacKinnon
Mark MacKinnon, The Globe’s senior international correspondent, has been covering international affairs and Canada’s role in the world since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the subsequent war in Afghanistan. Since that moment, he has covered elections and wars, revolutions and refugee crises, in all corners of the world.
Mark has been covering Russia and Ukraine since 2002 – when he was first sent abroad to serve as The Globe and Mail’s Moscow bureau chief – and has also been internationally recognized for his coverage of the war in Syria, the rise of the so-called Islamic State and the refugee crisis that followed. His 2016 story The Graffiti Kids, which followed the lives of the teenagers who inadvertently started the Syrian war, was named Story of the Year by the London-based Foreign Press Association.
Mark has also been posted to the Middle East and China for The Globe and Mail. He covered the initial arrival of Canadian troops in Afghanistan in 2002, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. He also reported on the 2013 transition of power in China from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping.
One of Canada’s most decorated foreign correspondents, Mark has won the National Newspaper Award seven times – including for reporting on the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the Syrian refugee crisis and the Iraq war – and is nominated for an eighth award in 2023 for his ongoing coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I started out wanting to witness history,” he says. “Now I strive to make sure others don’t look away.”
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Mark’s stories on the Israel-Hamas war so far:
Israel masses troops on Gaza border as it exchanges fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon
Loved ones recount horrifying murder of Canadian who was shot by Hamas in front of children
Israel announces war cabinet as it warns fighting will intensify
Blinken calls on Israel to minimize civilian deaths ahead of expected ground invasion of Gaza
Former Israeli PM says international troops should help stabilize Gaza after war
Goran Tomasevic
Supplied
Award-winning Serbian photographer Goran Tomasevic joined The Globe and Mail as a staff photographer in 2022 after spending three decades with Reuters, covering the world’s biggest stories. His work has been recognized with many prestigious international awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and first prize from World Press Photo.
He has photographed Syrian prison camps, Congolese civilians fleeing a proxy war, and Afghan educators under Taliban rule.
Here, he describes the motivation for his work, which has taken him from the Balkans and the Middle East to Africa and Latin America: “Today, when words are too often used to conceal the truth, photography stands on the side of reality. In this modern world of conflict, confrontation and concern for the future of our planet, photography’s role is more important than ever. A photo speaks the truth.”
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Goran’s photos from the Israel-Hamas war so far:
Nathan VanderKlippe
Jeff Vinnick/The Globe and Mail
Nathan VanderKlippe is an international correspondent for The Globe and Mail and is currently reporting from Lebanon. He has most recently covered the Maui wildfires, the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign and the Darien Gap, one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.
Previously, he worked as The Globe’s Asia correspondent, based in Beijing, where his reporting took him across the region to cover political developments, social trends, international affairs, refugee crises, natural disasters and, occasionally, hockey games. He has also won the World Press Freedom Canada award and a National Newspaper Award for his stories on the plight of the Uyghurs in China.
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Nathan’s stories on the Israel-Hamas war so far:
Many in Lebanon dread the prospect of war with Israel as tensions escalate in the region
First emergency aid shipments to Gaza ‘totally insufficient,’ humanitarian agencies say
In Cyprus, Canadian soldiers await potential orders for evacuation of citizens in Lebanon
Israel’s war rages in Gaza but fear and fury have fallen upon the West Bank too
Volunteers help out on Israeli farms near Gaza border to save crops threatened by war
Geoffrey York
Geoffrey York is a foreign correspondent and Africa bureau chief at The Globe and Mail, one of the longest-serving foreign correspondents in Canada, and one of The Globe’s longest-serving journalists. After a 13-year career in bureaus and beats in Canada, he has worked in foreign bureaus since 1994, beginning in Moscow, then in Beijing and then in Johannesburg.
He has won awards for his investigative reporting and for his coverage of Indigenous issues in Canada and abroad. Geoffrey covered the Oka crisis in 1990 as one of the few journalists who remained inside the siege during its final weeks. He has covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere.
He has written or co-written three books: The Dispossessed (about Indigenous issues in Canada); People of the Pines (about the Oka crisis); and The High Price of Health (about medical politics in Canada). Two of his books were national bestsellers in Canada.
“After almost three decades as a foreign correspondent, I have an understanding and respect for the complexity of issues in Africa, Asia, Europe and the former Soviet Union,” he says. “Those issues can sometimes be perplexing, but my commitment is to explaining the world in clear and coherent stories that show the humanity of people everywhere.”
Follow Geoffrey on X (formerly Twitter).
A few of Geoffrey’s stories on the Israel-Hamas war so far:
First Canadian evacuation plane, privately organized, flies out of Israel
Blinken calls on Israel to minimize civilian deaths ahead of expected ground invasion of Gaza
Israelis near Lebanon border fear a widening war if Hezbollah attacks
Israeli evacuation order in northern Gaza will cause chaos and calamity, humanitarian workers say
In Israel, survivors of Hamas massacre grapple with new realities and traumatic memories
Families of Israeli hostages protest government failure to bring loved ones home
For Arabs in Israeli town of Abu Ghosh, a life ‘caught in the middle’ of the religious divide
First aid convoy enters Gaza, but is seen as ‘a drop in the ocean of need’