The supermodel says she did not fact-check her accusation that Israel is “the only country” that holds children as prisoners of war.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Supermodel Gigi Hadid apologized Tuesday for a virulently anti-Israel post over the weekend, saying she did not “factcheck” her accusations, after being slammed for her false claims against the Jewish state.
In a two-page statement on Instagram to her 79 million followers, Hadid wrote in part, “As someone of Palestinian descent, the endless heartbreaking news and imagery coming out of Gaza has been painful and often overwhelming.”
“It is important to me to share real stories about the hardships that Palestinians have endured and continue to endure, but this weekend I shared something that I did not fact-check or deeply think about prior to reposting.”
Hadid had shared on her Instagram Story a post that tried to depict as innocent a teen terrorist who had stabbed and badly injured two Israeli civilians in 2015. Ahmad Manasra had been freed as part of the three-to-one, security prisoners-for-hostages deal Jerusalem made with Hamas last week that has resulted in the release so far of 61 Israelis of the 240 the terror organization kidnapped on October 7 during its massacre of 1,200 people in Gaza envelope communities.
She had captioned the post “Israel is the only country in the world that keeps CHILDREN AS PRISONERS OF WAR.”
She had been trying to “highlight how Palestinian children who are arrested by the IDF are often not given the same rights as an Israeli child accused of the same crime,” but she admitted that in this particular case, “I used the wrong example to make that point and I regret that.”
Manasra was put on trial, had a defense attorney, and was convicted after overwhelming evidence proved his criminal actions and their nationalist motivations.
Hadid added that she holds herself “accountable” for her “mistakes.”
The model also tried to portray herself as a general defender of human rights.
“My focus was intended to be on human rights issues,” she wrote. “That is why I also want to reiterate that attacking any human, which of course includes Jewish people, is NEVER OK. Taking innocent people hostage is NEVER OK. Harming someone BECAUSE they are Jewish is NEVER OK. It is wrong. To want freedom and humane treatment for Palestinians and to also want safety for Jewish people can both be important to the same person – including myself.”
Hadid, whose antipathy to Israel has come out on numerous occasions over the years, has been especially active online over the last seven weeks since Israel declared war on Hamas after its surprise invasion. She condemned Israel’s “treatment of Palestinians” soon after the war started, without condemning the terrorist organization’s atrocities that included burning whole families alive and beheading infants.
This earned her the wrath of the Israeli government, which replied on its Instagram channel, “Have you been sleeping the past week? Or are you just fine turning a blind eye to Jewish babies being butchered in their homes? Your silence has been very clear about where you stand. We see you.”
Over this weekend she has also falsely accused Israel of the “abduction, rape, humiliation, torture, [and] murder of Palestinians years and years and years before Oct. 7, 2023,” which seemingly justifies Hamas’ war crimes. She additionally shared a video accusing Israel of harvesting organs illegally from dead Palestinians, and attacked the Jewish state for “see[ing] any Palestinian as a ‘terrorist,’ any person supporting Palestinian rights as an ‘antisemite.”