When he's not modeling for top brands like Valentino and Hugo Boss, fashion model and TV personality Anwar Hadid makes an effort to publicly embrace his Palestinian roots

Last month, the brother of celebrity models Gigi and Bella released a music video capturing moments from his recent trip to Palestine and shedding light on the Palestinian cause.

Titled Progression 101 and featuring the guitarist of American rock-band The Doors, Robbie Krieger, the song is part of Hadid's debut music album Bleach, which was released in April.

Back in April, the 19-year-old model, who was born to Palestinian billionaire Mohamed Hadid and Dutch model Yolanda Hadid, made it out to Palestine with a few friends and documented his trip on social media. In his posts, Hadid spoke highly of Palestine's "culture and beauty and people that need to be seen and heard."

"Hopefully we can show you guys the deep-rooted details that affect our people every day, even the ones who are too young to understand. I feel like this could give us all good perspectives of our own lives, to see what is truly true and real vs what is told to us to be true," he wrote at the time.

Inspired by his trip, Hadid released the music video for his song Progression 101 and shared it with his 2.5 million Instagram followers last week. Directed by American video producer Vin Arfuso, the video was shot entirely in Palestine in the style of a home video using a Super 8mm film.

The video starts off with the voice of a police woman telling Hadid that the cab he is riding cannot drive to "the border."

"It's a big problem," a police woman tells him, to which he replies, "Why is it a problem?" The music kicks off soon after.

The video then showcases the streets of West Bank towns, capturing its residents going about their daily lives and its children playing around and riding bikes. It also captures graffiti art in the occupied territory, along with Palestinian flags hanging in the air. 

"Just to be erased from it all, by a bullet or iron bars," Hadid sings. 

The lyrics also include, "Everyday is sh*t for people that don't know anything but bullet rain [...] This sh*t is disgusting." 

Hadid joined his sisters and signed with IMG Models in 2016. He has since become the face of Hugo Boss Menswear's HUGO line, starred on the cover of Teen Vogue, and featured in a Valentino campaign, among other major modeling gigs.

He recently ventured into the music industry with an album named Bleach.

The Hadid family has regularly called out Israeli crimes and expressed solidarity with the people of Palestine on multiple occasions. This comes as their father, a real estate developer, was born in Nazareth during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, before fleeing to Syria with his family when he was 18-months-old. 

In April, the family attended the Arab Conference at Harvard 2019, the largest Arab conference in North America. Mohamed Hadid, the keynote speaker on identity at the conference, spoke about growing up in refugee camps and emphasized how important it is for his family to sustain their Palestinian identity. 

"One of my dreams is to have my kids carry the name Palestine with them everywhere they go because it seems like we are losing that name as we go on," he said at the time, according to The National. "We want to make sure my family always carries that on."

People are loving Hadid's work

"Beautiful representation"

"A beautiful portrayal of humanity"

Palestinians are deeply touched

"Such an inspiration"

"A beautiful reminder for compassion and understanding"

Celebrities, take note!

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