Palestinian Hadid sisters unfollow Kim Kardashian 'over Armenia-Azerbaijan feud'

Palestinian-Dutch Ameerican sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid "unfollowed" reality star Kim Kardashian on Twitter after she condemned them for not explicitly backing Armenia in its support for the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

According to a familiar source, Gigi and Bella posted about Armenia last weekend to raise awareness about the ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan.

"The girls got backlash online so they deleted those posts," the source told British newspaper The Sun.

The source added that Kardashian, who has Armenian heritage, later found out that Gigi and Bella may have been sympathetic to Azerbaijan, which led her to text the sisters. They allegedly did not respond to a request for comment about their position regarding the conflict.

The source revealed: "Kim texted both of them, reaching out to try to inform them about the conflict because she has been raising awareness about Armenia's cause, but Bella and Gigi did not take that well and got upset.

"Bella and Gigi unfollowed Kim shortly thereafter."

However, they still follow Kardashian’s sisters, including Kylie and Kendal Jenner.

Kim’s support for Israel

Political differences are not new to the Hadid-Kardashian friendship.

The sisters, who are also staunchly pro-Palestine, remained friends with Kardashian despite her controversial views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

During Israel's assault on the besieged Gaza Strip in November 2012, which left at least 103 Palestinians dead, Kardashian tweeted support for Israel.

"Praying for everyone in Israel," she tweeted.

In 2015, the socialite visited Israel with her husband Kanye West to baptise their daughter at the Armenian Cathedral in Jerusalem's Old City.

In 2018, Kardashian received backlash after she chose to be the face of an Israeli sunglasses brand, Carolina Lemke Berlin.

The battle for Nagorno-Karabakh 

Nagorno-Karabakh is a breakaway region of Azerbaijan mainly inhabited by ethnic Armenians and backed by Armenia.

Armenia and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus, have fought sporadically over the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ethnic Armenian separatists seized the Nagorno-Karabakh region from Baku in a 1990s war that claimed 30,000 lives.

The United Nations passed four resolutions on the conflict in the early 1990s.

The current fighting is the worst in the decades-long dispute since 2016.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay connected