Model Bella Hadid under fire for accusing Israel of ‘massacring’ Palestinians

“Bella Hadid as usual twists the facts about Israel and continues to spread hatred and incitement,” said Israeli Arab activist Yoseph Haddad.

By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner

Palestinian and Dutch model Bella Hadid is facing criticism for sharing a series of Instagram posts over the weekend where she ignored two deadly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, in which a 14-year-old boy was among the victims, and instead claimed that Israel was slaughtering innocent Palestinian children and adults.

The same weekend that seven people were shot dead and three were wounded in a terrorist attack near a synagogue in eastern Jerusalem, Hadid shared a post on her Instagram Stories on Sunday about Palestinian 17-year-old Salah Muhammad Ali, who she said was allegedly “the fifth child and 20th Palestinian killed by Israeli soldiers this month alone.”

She failed to mention that majority of those Palestinian victims were terrorists and that Salah was killed after wearing a mask and aiming what appeared to be a gun — which later was found to be fake — at Israeli forces during a clash between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in east Jerusalem.

Hadid also made no mention in her Instagram Stories about the 13-year-old Palestinian boy who on Saturday morning opened fire in the City of David area of Jerusalem, wounding a father and son. Instead, she shared a series of posts about nine Palestinians who she claimed were “massacred” during an Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. She did not mention that seven of the Palestinians were gunmen.

“Bella Hadid as usual twists the facts about Israel and continues to spread hatred and incitement,” said Israeli Arab activist Yoseph Haddad in a video he shared on Twitter with his 71,000 followers, which was retweeted by Disturbed frontman David Draiman.

“She presents Israel as a state killing kids, even while the same child terrorist received a life-saving treatment and is still being treated in an Israeli hospital, even though he tried to murder Israeli civilians,” Haddad added. He added that the “most outrageous” part about the model’s Instagram posts is that she ignored the fact that among those murdered in the east Jerusalem terrorist attack on Friday night was 14-year-old Asher Nathan, who was laid to rest on Sunday.

“The one who harms innocent children is not Israel, it is the Palestinians. And Bella Hadid — you are part of the problem. Understand? You are part of the problem,” said Haddad.

Israel’s military said its troops went into Jenin to arrest members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group that they suspected have carried out and are continuing to plan “multiple major terror attacks,” and ultimately shot several of them after they opened fire, Reuters reported.

Islamic Jihad said two of its men died during the raid, Hamas claimed four of the killed gunmen were part of its terrorist organization, and another was claimed by an armed wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, Reuters added.

Hadid’s mother is Dutch-born former model Yolanda Hadid, her father is Nazareth-born Jordanian real estate magnate Mohamed Hadid and her sister is fellow model Gigi Hadid.

Bella, who is the new face of a Louis Vuitton campaign, has a history of making antisemitic and anti-Israel remarks. In an interview with Vogue magazine, she accused Israel of “suppressing” Palestinians, and in 2021, she participated in a pro-Palestinian rally that called for the destruction of Israel.

The Israeli government’s official Twitter account later charged the model with advocating for the “elimination of the Jewish State.”