Many have praised NBC Foreign Correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin for his coverage of the Israel and Gaza conflict, who has covered Gaza before in 2009 and 2012. Mohyeldin, who has Egyptian and Palestinian roots, is one of the most experienced reporters regarding Gaza and has covered many war zones in the past.

So it came as a shock when NBC pulled him out of Gaza Thursday. An NBC source told The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald that network executives had security concerns as an Israeli ground invasion loomed. But NBC instead sent another correspondent, Richard Engel, and a producer with no experience in Gaza.

Anger spread on social media, and on Twitter the hashtag #LetAymanReport began trending.

No “Western” TV journalists have covered #Gaza with more nuance and heart than @AymanM & @SherineT. In 2008, they were only ones in Gaza — jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) July 17, 2014

Wait — What?? @AymanM whose NBC coverage has been stellar, pulled out of Gaza? https://t.co/nSch7KtjHq — Anne Barnard (@ABarnardNYT) July 17, 2014

Friday the network reversed their decision and announced Mohyeldin would be redeployed to Gaza. Here is a statement from an NBC News spokeswoman:

“Ayman Mohyeldin has done extraordinary reporting throughout the escalation of the conflict in Gaza, filing 25+ reports over the past 17 days, including his invaluable and well-documented contribution to the story on the deaths of the four Palestinian children on Wednesday. As with any news team in conflict zones, deployments are constantly reassessed. We’ve carefully considered our deployment decisions and we will be sending Ayman back to Gaza over the weekend. We look forward to his contributions in the coming days.” -NBC News

Thanks for all the support. Im returning to #Gaza to report. Proud of NBC’s continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story — Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) July 18, 2014

(My read of NBC’s statement: an about-face that comes close to saying “we made a mistake.” Much more about this on @CNNReliable on Sunday.) — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 19, 2014

Many saw the decision to pull Mohyeldin out of Gaza as a defeat for objective journalism, as he covered the Palestinian side of the conflict extensively. Wednesday he filed a report on the four Palestinian boys who were killed by Israeli attacks while playing on a beach.

.@AymanM doesn’t only do great journalism. He raises the bar. His return to Gaza makes us all better. — Tamer El-Ghobashy (@TamerELG) July 19, 2014