He's previously spoken of his pride for his Palestinian heritage, and now Anwar Hadid has followed in the footsteps of his father by making a journey to Nazareth. The model, 19, this week ventured to Palestine with friends, where he has been documenting his travels on his social media accounts. "My brothers and I touched the mother land today ... much culture and beauty and people that need to be seen and heard," the catwalk and magazine star told his 2.5 million Instagram followers as he arrived in the Arab nation. "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." Anwar is the youngest child of real-estate developer Mohamed Hadid, who was born in Nazareth and forced to flee Palestine with his family when he was just an infant. The mogul, who is also the father of supermodels Bella and Gigi, has previously spoken of hoping to instill a pride of Palestine in his children. "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," Mohamed said at the Arab Conference at Harvard 2019 earlier this month. "We want to make sure my family always carries that on." The developer also expressed his pride in Anwar's travels, commenting on photos the model posted on Instagram. "Our home land. Where I was born is Nazareth. Where your grandparents (my mom and dad) were living is a town named Safad," wrote Mohamed, who spent time in refugee camps in Syria as a child. "I love you son." According to his Instagram Stories, Anwar has ventured to Jericho and Nazareth during his trip, as well as Deir Yassin, the site where more than 100 villagers were massacred in 1948. "[The people of Palestine] still persevere in the things they love and their art," Anwar wrote on Instagram. "To me that's a whole different type of power than no man can take from them." Both Bella and Gigi have previously spoken out about their heritage, with the latter calling out her critics last year. "When I shot the cover of <em>Vogue Arabia</em>, I wasn't 'Arab enough' to be representing those girls, even though I'm half-Palestinian," she said at a Reebok event in Sydney in November. "I'm as Palestinian as I am Dutch. Just because I have blonde hair, I still carry the value of my ancestors and I appreciate and respect that." Bella, meanwhile, revealed she was "proud to be a Muslim" in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s attempted travel bans in 2017. "My dad was a refugee when he first came to America, so it's actually very close to home for my sister and brother and me," she told fashion magazine <em>Porter</em> of Trump's attempted travel bans. “He was always religious, and he always prayed with us."
