Watching the TV coverage of the conflict in Gaza with increasing dismay this week, my mind went back to the banks of the Suez canal in October 1973. I was filming the surrender of the entire Egyptian third army with a team from the BBC, without significant censorship or hindrance. The Israeli commander, Gen Avraham Adan, paused in whatever he was doing to give us an update.

Crossing the canal on the Israeli pontoon bridge in a bright yellow Hertz car (not a wise choice of colour) we were even helped when we had to repair a tyre that had been punctured by the shrapnel that littered the battlefield.

Censorship? Yes, the report was censored by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) back at the satellite feed point in Herzliya. But the censorship was limited only to matters of operational security. This was obviously helpful to the journalists, but also to the Israelis themselves. They had independent verification, with video to back it, of their remarkable achievement in turning around their initial setbacks in Sinai. And they could show, through scenes with a biblical resonance, that the Egyptians’ surrender was conducted humanely and in accordance with the Geneva conventions, the laws of war. As the great columns of the third army mounted a sand dune, they exchanged their weapons for bottles of water abundantly provided.

Was it always this easy? Of course not. On another occasion, I rose early and reached a road block beyond Gaza only to be turned back, as all the press were that day, on the orders of southern command.

But that was exceptional. The IDF operated a policy of relatively open access based on mutual advantage. Sometimes it would herd everyone into press buses, which was far from satisfactory. But it would regularly provide the major TV networks with an escort officer, armed and in uniform, to enable and supervise the coverage. One of my escorts in the Yom Kippur war was

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