‘Generational trauma of my Palestinian blood’: Bella Hadid’s plea for peace in Middle East – Times of India
“Forgive me for my silence,” Hadid wrote on Instagram Thursday. “I have yet to find the ideal words for this deeply intricate and horrific past 2 weeks, weeks that have turned the world’s attention back towards a situation that has been taking innocent lives and affecting families for decades.”
Bella Hadid’s father, Mohamed Hadid, fled the region with his family during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War when he was just a baby.Both Bella Hadid and her sister, model Gigi Hadid, have strongly connected with their Palestinian heritage and actively supported the Palestinian cause.
Bella Hadid also revealed that her personal phone number was leaked, leading to her receiving hundreds of death threats daily. Despite the danger to her family, she emphasized her determination not to remain silent.
“My heart is bleeding with pain from the trauma I am seeing unfold, as well as the generational trauma of my Palestinian blood,” Hadid wrote. “Seeing the aftermath from the airstrikes in Gaza, I mourn with all the mothers who have lost children and the children who cry alone, all the lost fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, friends that will never again walk this earth.”
She said she mourned, too, for the Israeli families suffering in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants, who killed more than 1,400 people in Israel and took more than 200 hostages, according to the government.
“Regardless of the history of the land, I condemn the terrorist attacks on any civilians, anywhere,” Hadid wrote. “Harming women and children and inflicting terror does not and should not do any good for the Free Palestine movement.”
Hadid additionally provided context regarding her father’s relocation from Nazareth during the Nakba, an Arabic term signifying the “catastrophe,” describing the large-scale displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 war. Mohamed Hadid and his family were forcibly removed from Palestine, transforming into refugees, away from the place they once called home.
She also addressed the profound suffering caused by Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories over the ensuing decades. Since its occupation of the West Bank in the 1967 war, Israel has constructed numerous settlements, despite these actions being widely regarded as violations of international law and counter to a United Nations plan that initially reserved the West Bank for a future Palestinian state.
“My family witnessed 75 years of violence against Palestinian people,” Bella Hadid wrote. “Most notably, brutal settler invasions which led to the destruction of entire communities, murder in cold blood and the forcible removal of families from their homes.”
“The practice of settlements on Palestinian land still continues to this day,” she added.
She highlighted the pressing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since the October 7th attack. The Hamas group governs this Palestinian area, home to over 2 million residents. Israel has halted the supply of essential resources, resulting in a high casualty toll, including many children, due to weeks of airstrikes.
“Wars have laws – and they must be upheld, no matter what,” Hadid wrote.
“We need to keep pressure on 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 casualties of this war.”
(via media reports)
