Mustafa Shares Powerful New Single and Video 'Gaza Is Calling' Starring Bella Hadid

Acclaimed Sudanese-Canadian musician and poet Mustafa has released an impactful new single and video, "Gaza Is Calling."

The song, originally written in 2020, tells the story of Mustafa's childhood friendship with a boy from Gaza, while the accompanying video, directed by Palestinian actor Hiam Abbas, features model Bella Hadid and Gazan rapper MC Abdul in a powerful story about grief and displacement.

"'Gaza is Calling’ is about my first experience with heartbreak in friendship," Mustafa says in a statement. When he was 11, the singer formed a deep bond with a Palestinian boy in the Toronto housing project they both lived in. "Not even this love was a match for the violence we were up against," Mustafa explains. "In the end it was all the bloodshed between us that didn’t allow us to see each other without tears appearing, and one of the last notes he sent to me was about how we would continue on in another life."

The song finds Mustafa singing over a gently-played Oud — "the instrument of our homelands, Sudan and Palestine," Mustafa says. "Gaza is calling, it's been years since you've been back," he sings to his friend in the chorus, "every time I say your name / there's a wall that's in the way."

The video follows a narrative led by Hadid and MC Abdul as they gaze at old photos and sit with grief together, intercut with a simultaneous story of Israa Ahmed and her brother, two children in a Jenin refugee camp that's marked by destruction. Though worlds apart, the two stories are visually knit together through parallel images: Hadid embraces Abdul, and Ahmed embraces her brother.

After the second chorus, a heady beat enters for the last 45 seconds of the song, as Israa Ahmed lets out a scream. The edits in the video get faster, cutting between fires, graves, stretchers and old photos, driving home the song's intensity and urgency. Though much of the video was shot in 2023, some of the Jenin footage is as recent as last week. Ahmed and her brother remain in the refugee camp.

"The hope is that this serves as a stark reminder that every path is ours, every child is ours, and every war is ours to answer for and speak against," Mustafa says.

Net proceeds from "Gaza Is Calling" will go towards the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, which is providing food, health care and other services in Gaza, where 37,000 people have been killed by Israel since October, following Hamas' October 7 attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people.

Musicians in Canada and across the globe have been speaking out against the war in Gaza, where the International Court of Justice ruled it "plausible" that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention.

Earlier this year, Mustafa also held a benefit concert for Gaza and Sudan, featuring performers like Stormzy and Daniel Caesar, as well as penning a letter to Justin Trudeau last fall. His debut album is expected later this year via Arts & Crafts.

Stream "Gaza Is Calling" here.