Bella Hadid says Instagram removed her 'Proud to be Palestinian' post

Bella Hadid has accused Instagram of bullying after it removed a story in which she shared how proud she was of her father's Palestinian heritage.

The supermodel on Tuesday shared an image of her father Mohamed Hadid's long-expired U.S. passport, which shows his birth place as Palestine.

Hadid then reposted the photo of her father's American passport in an additional Instagram Story and asked the tech giant: "Do you want me to change his birthplace for you?"

Bella re-posted the passport photo which now remains on her social media feed, with a message from her saying: 'Everyone should post where their mother and fathers were born today! This, to me, is bullying.

On Tuesday, the supermodel took issue with the platform after she was notified that her Instagram Story had been removed because it violated guidelines on "harassment or bullying".

Later, Bella posted a screen grab of what Instagram sent her. We have these guidelines because we want our community to feel respected and safe'.

The 23-year-old star declared, "I am proud to be Palestinian".

She also said she was "proud to be Palestinian" and urged her almost 31.5 million followers to "post where their mother and fathers were born today!"

In a statement, however, a spokesperson for Instagram parent company Facebook told Mediaite that the post was not removed over references to Palestine.

'We are sick of having Palestinian content censored on social media platforms, ' one fan wrote, adding: 'Mohammad Hadid's passport considered hate speech bc it stated he was born in Palestine. "We've restored the content and apologized to Bella for the mistake". Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe to ELLE's print magazine now and pay just £6 for 6 issues.