OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
3:25 PM – Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Supermodel Gigi Hadid apologized after receiving a wave of backlash for posting on social media about the Israel-Hamas conflict, professing that she did not “fact-check” her information before sharing on platforms.
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Hadid, who is a Palestinian-American supermodel, shared an Instagram post to her 79 million followers accusing Israel of being the “only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war,” and that the Jewish State had “abducted, raped, and tortured Palestinians for years before October 7th.”
In her original post, the 28-year-old model shared a false claim that focused on the case of Ahmed Mansara, who she said had been “abducted” by Israeli soldiers. The post included a photo of Mansara, who stabbed a police officer and a 13-year-old boy in East Jerusalem back in 2015.
In another video that Hadid posted to Instagram, she asserted that Israelis have long been “taking dead Palestinians’ organs without their permission.”
However, on Tuesday, Hadid shared a two-page post apologizing for spreading “misinformation” in her original post about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. She admitted that she “did not fact-check” before posting.
“I shared something that I did not fact check or deeply think about prior to reposting,” Hadid, 28, wrote in a new post on Tuesday to Instagram. “I was 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 would. Unfortunately, I used the wrong example to make that point and I regret that.”
“As someone of Palestinian descent, the endless heartbreaking news and imagery coming out of Gaza has been painful and often overwhelming,” Hadid added. “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.”
The supermodel then went on to say that she did not support violence against anyone, stating 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 want safety for Jewish people can both be important to the same person, including myself,” Hadid wrote.
However, Hadid additionally mentioned that the Israeli government has still violated human rights.
“It is well documented, by credible human rights organizations, that there has been systematic mistreatment of the Palestinian people by the government of Israel. I know these historical issues well because they are the history of my own family, Palestinians who were forced to flee their homeland in the late 1940s,” she wrote. “At the same time, I understand that with the power of my platform comes a huge responsibility. I’m human and I make mistakes. But I also hold myself accountable for those mistakes.”
She said that she will “continue to pray” for the safe return of all hostages and peace for “the people of Gaza and Israel” after stating that she opposes the “spreading of misinformation” and the use of the Free Palestine movement as a justification for anti-Semitism.
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