Mohamed Hadid

About

Mohamed Anwar Hadid ( hə-DEED; Arabic: محمد أنور حديد; born (1948-11-06)November 6, 1948) is a Palestinian-American real estate developer. He is known for building luxury hotels and mansions, mainly in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles and the city of Beverly Hills, California. He is the father of models Gigi and Bella Hadid. Born in Nazareth, Hadid immigrated to the United States as a teenager.

Hadid was born into a Palestinian Muslim family on November 6, 1948, in Nazareth. His parents were Khairiah (née Daher; 1925–2008) and Anwar Mohamed Hadid (1918–1989). Hadid has two brothers and five sisters. Through Khairiah, he claims descent from Daher al-Umar, an 18th-century Arab ruler of northern Palestine. Anwar studied at a teachers’ college in Jerusalem and attended a university in Syria to study law before working in land settlement for the British Mandatory authorities and teaching English at a teachers’ college in Palestine.
During the 1948 Palestine war, the family fled to Lebanon as part of the expulsion and flight. The same year, they moved to Damascus, Syria, where Anwar joined the United States Information Agency (USIA) and Voice of America (VOA). There…