Alistair Bunkall is Sky News Middle East Correspondent. He is a multi-award winning journalist who has reported from more than thirty countries on five continents and covered conflicts around the world from Yemen to Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, Iraq and Ukraine, for which he was part of Sky’s Emmy winning entry in 2023. Currently based in Jerusalem, he is the face of the channel’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas War and its wider regional repercussions. Previously Defence and Security Correspondent for the channel for many years, he reported extensively on Islamic State and Al Qaeda and has been given unprecedented access to some of the UK's most secretive establishments: GCHQ, the Trident nuclear deterrent, the country's highly secure air command bunker and...
Alistair Bunkall is Sky News Middle East Correspondent.
He is a multi-award winning journalist who has reported from more than thirty countries on five continents and covered conflicts around the world from Yemen to Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, Iraq and Ukraine, for which he was part of Sky’s Emmy winning entry in 2023.
Currently based in Jerusalem, he is the face of the channel’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas War and its wider regional repercussions.
Previously Defence and Security Correspondent for the channel for many years, he reported extensively on Islamic State and Al Qaeda and has been given unprecedented access to some of the UK’s most secretive establishments: GCHQ, the Trident nuclear deterrent, the country’s highly secure air command bunker and covert drone bases. He is one of the few journalists in the world to have reported from North Korea and secured the first ever interview with a North Korean official.
Alistair has reported on smuggling operations along the mountainous Lebanese-Syria border, with human traffickers in northern Iraq, the effect of climate change in Africa and in the Islamic State prison camps, including a rare interview with Shamima Begum. During the Covid pandeminc, he spent months in New York with his team as the US locked down and the death toll became the worst in the world.
Alistair has also been a central figure in Sky’s coverage of many elections including the 2020 US Presidential elections, votes in Turkey, Pakistan and the UK, the Eurozone crisis, humanitarian disasters around the world, and he was inside Windsor Castle for the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh.
He has interviewed many world leaders including British Prime Ministers and world Presidents, military commanders and intelligence chiefs.
His 2023 exclusive interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, was described by Israeli newspapers Haaretz as “piercing” and “probably the last British interview Netanyahu will ever dare do”.
His personal podcast series Off the Record with Alistair Bunkall was a portfolio of interviews with world leaders including the NATO Secretary General, and Archbishop of Westminster. The episode with Sir Alex Younger was the first ever interview by a serving Chief of MI6 and made national headlines.
Alistair has deep knowledge of the Middle East and wider global security issues, and experience operating in some of the world’s most hostile zones. He is a highly experienced broadcaster with many hours of live television during his career and deploys at short notice to many of the biggest stories around the world.
