Instagram apologises over removing Bella Hadid’s Palestinian post

Earlier this week, model Bella Hadid shared how Instagram bullied her by removing her story about her dad’s Palestinian roots. The brunette beauty had shared a picture of her father, Mohamed Hadid’s old US passport which showed his birthplace as Palestine.

However, the post was removed by Instagram on grounds of ‘harassment and bullying.’

Now, Instagram has apologised to the model for the action. A spokesperson for Facebook, Instagram’s parent company responded to Hadid’s outburst in a statement given to Page Six.

“To protect the privacy of our community, we don’t allow people to post personal information, such as passport numbers, on Instagram. In this case the passport number was blurred out, so this content shouldn’t have been removed. We’ve restored the content and apologized to Bella for the mistake,” said the rep.

Bella had previously shared a screenshot of the notification she received from Insta saying the content went against its community guidelines, writing, “@Instagram exactly what part of me being proud of my father’s birthplace of Palestine is “bullying, harassment, graphic or sexual nudity?”

Bella then went on to school the app for allegedly doing what it went against, saying, “Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying.”

She then added, “You can’t erase history by silencing people. It doesn’t work like that,” before re-sharing the picture of Mohamed Hadid’s passport. “Do you want him to change his birth place for you?” she questioned this time. In another post, she also wrote, “I am proud to be Palestinian,” urging others to also share where their parents are from.

Bella and her two siblings Gigi and Anwar Hadid are the children of real estate developer Mohamed Hadid and of Dutch model Yolanda. Mohamed Hadid was born in Palestine and raised in Jordan.