New Yorker contributor based in Gaza ‘arrested,’ editor tells staffers

Media

By Ariel Zilber

New Yorker editor David Remnick told staffers that a Gaza-based Palestinian poet who contributed essays to the magazine has been “arrested.”

The Conde Nast-owned publication has lost contact with Mosab Abu Toha, according to Michael Luo, a New Yorker editor who announced Remnick’s note on his X social media page on Monday.

Luo’s post didn’t specify who the magazine believes arrested Abu Toha, only saying that he was taken into custody in central Gaza, according to the magazine.

Israel has staged a massive ground operation in Gaza, the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory, in response to the Oct. 7 cross-border assault by Hamas terrorists, which left 1,200 people dead.

The Post has sought comment from The New Yorker and the Israeli government.

Luo posted several links to stories by Abu Toha, who has also authored several books.

In 2019, he spent a year at Harvard University as a librarian-in-residence.

A Palestinian freelancer working for NBC News was arrested in Israel on suspicion of inciting terror and identifying with a terrorist organization, according to local reports.

Earlier on Monday, it was reported that Mirvat al-Azzeh, who lives in East Jerusalem, was jailed by Israeli authorities Thursday for allegedly sharing four recent Facebook posts regarding Hamas’ sneak attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

It’s unclear what al-Azzeh, 45, wrote in those posts, though police described them at a hearing at the Jerusalem Magistrate Court as “inciting and glorying the horrible acts committed against civilians,” per the Jerusalem Post.

NBC, owned by Comcast, said Monday it has cut ties with the journalist.

“Before we recently retained Marwat Azza for services as a freelance producer, we were not aware of her personal social media activity that provided the basis for the Israeli investigation,” an NBC spokesperson told The Post, using an alternate spelling of her name.

Her arrest comes as other mainstream US outlets have sparked outrage over relying on journalists who have expressed antisemitic sentiments in the past.

The New York Times recently rehired a Hitler-praising filmmaker to cover the Israel-Hamas war.

Soliman Hijjy — who hailed the Nazi leader as recently as 2018 in a post on Facebook — boasted a byline at the Times nearly every day between Oct. 12 and Oct. 19, reporting from Gaza.

Additional reporting by Shannon Thaler