Diana Magnay was reporting live on the air as a group watched the Israeli bombardment of Gaza around her. She later tweeted: “Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong.’ Scum.”
NEW YORK (Associated Press) — CNN has pulled reporter Diana Magnay out of the Middle East after she referred to a group of Israelis who had allegedly threatened her while reporting on Gaza as “scum” in a tweet.
Magnay was reporting live on the air as a group watched the Israeli bombardment of Gaza around her. After the report was over, she wrote on Twitter: “Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong.’ Scum.”
CNN said in a statement Friday that Magnay was referring specifically to those who threatened her. CNN said the network and Magnay are sorry if anyone was offended.
The network said Magnay has been reassigned to Moscow.
Meanwhile, NBC says it is sending reporter Ayman Mohyeldin back to the Gaza Strip this weekend after he left the region suddenly following his eyewitness report of the killing of four Palestinian boys on Wednesday.
The network on Friday praised Mohyeldin’s for his “extraordinary reporting” throughout the conflict in Gaza. Mohyeldin had a firsthand report this week on the deaths of the boys on a Gaza beach, even tweeting that he had played soccer with some of them shortly before the attack. But it struck some observers as strange that when NBC’s “Nightly News” reported on the deaths, correspondent Richard Engel did the story.
NBC would not discuss why Mohyeldin had been temporarily taken off the story.
