Bella Hadid breaks her silence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an emotional manifesto

Bella Hadid has expressed her shock at the war, horror and violence stalking the Gaza Strip in a post on her Instagram profile, in which she urged people to be ‘humane and compassionate’ in the face of the violence in Palestine and Israel, condemning the terrorist attacks.

The model, of Palestinian origin, apologised for having kept silent since this new episode in the Israeli conflict broke out on 7 October; weeks in which both she and her family have received death threats for their position of liberation and salvation of the Palestinian people subjected to the Israeli blockade.

‘Hundreds of death threats have been sent to me daily, my phone number has been leaked and my family has felt in danger,’ she wrote. ‘But I can’t keep quiet any longer. Fear is not an option. The people and children of Palestine, especially in Gaza, cannot afford our silence. We are not brave, they are,’ Hadid said of the intimidation and harassment she has received for supporting Palestine.

He added: ‘My heart bleeds with pain from the trauma I am seeing, as well as from the generational trauma of my Palestinian blood. Seeing the aftermath of the airstrikes in Gaza, I cry with all the mothers who have lost their children and with the children who cry alone, with all the lost fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and friends who will never set foot on this land again’.

In the same statement, the model condemned terrorism and the attacks and bombings by Hamas, mourning the Israeli families for the pain and aftermath. ‘I condemn terrorist attacks against any civilian, anywhere […] I believe in my heart of hearts that no child, no person anywhere, should be separated from their family either temporarily or indefinitely. This is true for Israelis as well as Palestinians’.

Finally, Bella stressed urgent humanitarian attention in the face of the deepening social crisis in Gaza, highlighting the desperate need for food, water and fuel in the region. ‘Wars have laws, and they must be enforced no matter what,’ she wrote. ‘We must continue to press our leaders, wherever we are, not to forget the urgent needs of the people of Gaza and to ensure that innocent Palestinian civilians are not the forgotten victims of this war.’