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Who is Soliman Hijjy? NYT reporter who came under fire for Hitler-praising posts rehired to cover Israel-Hamas war

Soliman Hijjy's story has been published almost every day since he was rehired last week by the New York Times

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: The New York Times is once again being criticized for bringing back one of their former employees to cover the Israel-Hamas war.

Soliman Hijjy, a Palestinian filmmaker who once worked for the New York Times, posted an online Hitler photograph and praised him on Facebook, New York Post reports.

He shared the said post originally in 2018 which went viral in 2022. One of Hijjy’s captions read, "In a state of harmony as Hitler was during the Holocaust” as per a translation from Arabic by pro-Israel media watchdog site HonestReporting.

What did Soliman Hijjy say in his Facebook post?

That same year, Hijjy was brought in as a freelance journalist and worked on a slew of ‘visual investigations’ published by the Times through 2021. He also covered an Israeli airstrike that killed 44 people.

Hijjy’s controversial post from 2018 along with another Facebook post from 2012 which read, “How great you are, Hitler” in Arabic alongside an edited image of Hitler were posted when pro-Israel outlets called out the Times for their choice of employee.

Hijjy’s story has been published almost every day since he was rehired last week by the Times. His most recent story was posted by the media outlet on Thursday, October 19, from Gaza.

Hijjy’s piece was called, “At a hospital in southern Gaza, a backup generator becomes a critical lifeline,” where he referred to a facility two miles from the Ahli Arab Hospital bombing by a Palestine militant group.

It falsely blamed Israel for the attack while Israel claimed it was a misfire from the other side that led to severe human loss.

New York Times defends its move to rehire Soliman Hijjy

Meanwhile, the New York Times has defended its decision to bring back Hijjy. “We reviewed problematic social media posts by Mr Hijjy when they first came to light in 2022 and took a variety of actions to ensure he understood our concerns and could adhere to our standards if he wished to do freelance work for us in the future,” a spokesperson for NYT said.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan also expressed surprise at the Times’ decision to call back Hijjy.

He tweeted, “The @nytimes has just rehired a NAZI. Let that sink in. Soliman Hijjy praises Hitler, and the NYT rehired him."

Internet, too, was quick to react to Hijjy's rehiring news. "Shocking that no one that’s been paying attention to the mouthpiece for anything anti-Jewish the Old Gray Lady - New York Terrorist news outlet," wrote one, adding "boycott NYtimes."

"If there is still anyone who reads them," commented a second user while another wrote, "Do any of these companies do a background check? I don’t think my local movie theatre would hire him, they’re more throughout than NYT."

"@nytimes? So the stories he post are bias. How are we to believe what he writes?," questioned another.