Bella and Gigi Hadid to donate $1 million to Palestinian aid groups

Model sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid plan to donate $1 million to support Palestinian relief efforts – and have decided that part of the money will be donated to the UN's Palestinian refugee aid agency, in difficulty, whose employees are linked to Hamas.

The funds are to be divided equally among four organizations helping Palestinian women and children, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

In January, UNRWA announced it had fired nine of its 12 employees suspected by Israel of involvement in the October 7 Hamas attack that left around 1,200 people dead and 253 others kidnapped.

A damning Israeli dossier, compiled from interrogations of Hamas terrorists and documents found in Gaza, estimates that around 1,200 UNRWA personnel had ties to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The UN humanitarian agency has previously been criticized by Republicans in the US House of Representatives for allegedly helping Hamas with “food, fuel and supplies” intended to provide humanitarian aid in the part of the terrorist group's war with Israel.

The United States cut all funding for UNRWA until March 2025 under the $1.2 trillion spending bill passed earlier this year.

Other organizations expected to receive donations from the Hadid siblings include HEAL Palestine, Palestine Children's Relief Fund and World Central Kitchen.

The Hadids, whose father is Palestinian-American real estate mogul Mohamed Hadid, have been outspoken in their support of Palestinians affected by the ongoing war in Gaza.

In May, Bella Hadid wrote on Instagram that she was “devastated by the loss of the Palestinian people and the lack of empathy from government systems around the world.”

Earlier this week, Bella Hadid posted a photo of herself at the Cannes Film Festival wearing a keffiyeh patterned dress “to represent history, the labor of love, resilience and, most importantly, the art of historical Palestinian embroidery”.

In November, however, Gigi Hadid was criticized for falsely claiming that Israel was “the only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war”, while also accusing Israelis of a number of heinous crimes against Palestinians, including rape and murder.

Mohamed Hadid, meanwhile, demonized President Joe Biden as a “Zionist criminal” and had to apologize after sending an avalanche of racist and homophobic messages to US Representative Ritchie Torres (D-New York), who is a staunch defender of Israel.