{"id":2239,"date":"2023-11-14T12:52:56","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T12:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/?p=2239"},"modified":"2023-11-14T12:52:56","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T12:52:56","slug":"the-son-of-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/2239.html","title":{"rendered":"The Son of Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2239-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/kevin-13.11.23.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/kevin-13.11.23.mp3\">https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/kevin-13.11.23.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><strong>Hello and welcome to business news on al-Raqeeb 101.9 FM. I am Kevin Daromar<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have a short story to tell you today. The title of the story is \u201cthe Son of Gaza.\u201d I\u2019ll leave it to you to guess the name of this person for now, but I\u2019ll tell you the name at the end.<br \/>\nSo the son of Gaza was born on September 1st, 1989.<\/p>\n<p>He is a Palestinian pop singer well known for being the winner of the second season of Arab Idol, broadcast by the MBC network. His victory received worldwide coverage from the media and was welcomed with joy by Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world. In 2013, he was named a goodwill ambassador for peace by The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). He was also named ambassador of culture and arts by the Palestinian government and was offered a position with &#8220;diplomatic standing&#8221; by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. His story is the basis of the 2015 film The Idol, directed by Hany Abu-Assad. After Arab Idol, he has gone on to enjoy huge popularity in the Arab World and the Arab diaspora and has released two albums and a great number of singles.<\/p>\n<p>He was born in Misrata, Libya to Palestinian parents. He lived there until he was 4 years old, when his parents moved back to Gaza, he grew up in Khan Younis refugee camp with a middle class couple where he attended UNRWA elementary school. His parents moved to Khan Yunis Refugee Camp when he was four years old. He is one of six siblings, three of whom, have been involved in performing live music. His mother Intisar, a mathematics teacher, stated that he began singing at the age of five and &#8220;had a voice of someone who was much, much older. &#8220;Before his role on the television show he was attending Gaza City&#8217;s Palestine University majoring in media and public relations. He did not have professional training as a singer; he started his career singing at weddings and other private events. He entered the public view in 2000 during a popular local television program where he called in and sung a nationalist song to the host&#8217;s praise. Afterward, he was frequently offered contracts with local record companies. Sometime after his first performance, he sang in a local event in Gaza attended by late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat.<\/p>\n<p>He travelled from Gaza Strip to Egypt to audition for Arab Idol. It took him two days to reach Egypt by car due to complications on the border. At the beginning, he had to convince the Egyptian security at the border crossing, where he was stuck for two days, to leave Gaza. Once he reached the hotel where the auditions were taking place, the doors were closed in which they did not accept anymore auditions so he jumped over the wall. After he jumped over the wall, he couldn&#8217;t get a number to audition; he sat hopelessly in the hall where other contestants were waiting for their turn. He started singing to the contestants, and a Palestinian contestant, Ramadan Abu Nahel, who was waiting to audition heard him and gave him his number saying, &#8220;I know I won&#8217;t reach the finals but you will.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He was acclaimed by the jury and the public. His voice and appearance have drawn comparisons to Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez, which has garnered him both fame and controversy.<br \/>\nHundreds of thousands of Palestinians had tuned in to watch his performance. On June 22nd, he was declared the winner of Arab Idol, winning the most votes and coming ahead of two other competitors, Ahmed Gamal and Farah Youssef, from Egypt and Syria.<\/p>\n<p>Massive celebrations by Palestinians ensued after the announcement of his victory, including festivities held on the streets of Gaza City, East Jerusalem, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Khan Yunis, Nazareth, Lebanon and Jordan, and when his professional career as an artist began after the title of Arab Idol, he was accompanied by Awtar Band led by The Maestro Yacoub Al-Atrash in Arab and international festivals since then.<br \/>\nHave you guessed the name, of course. It\u2019s Mohammad Assaf, the son of Gaza. This is what Gazans can do once they are given a chance to live their dreams. To make their dreams come true.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mohammed_Assaf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello and welcome to business news on al-Raqeeb 101.9 FM. I am Kevin Daromar I have a short story to tell you today. The title of the story is \u201cthe Son of Gaza.\u201d I\u2019ll leave it to you to guess the name of this person for now, but I\u2019ll tell you the name at the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-special-reports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2242,"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions\/2242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raqeeb.ps\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}