St. Levant ignites the Moroccan Gnaoua Festival... and the audience displays the Palestinian flag

When rapper Marwan Abdelhamid, nicknamed “Saint Levant,” took the Moulay El Hassan stage at the Gnaoua Festival in Essaouira, Morocco, the audience applauded and chanted “Freedom for Palestine.”

Raising the flag of Palestine at the Saint Levant ceremony in Morocco Over the course of an hour, Saint Levant performed old and new songs in front of a crowd of people who raised Palestinian flags and multi-colored scarves and koftas, creating an image of solidarity with the Gaza Strip.

One of the most prominent songs of the 23-year-old Saint Levant is the song “Deira”, which bears the name of the Deira Hotel that his father built in the Gaza Strip, while he worked as a teacher, while Israel bombed it in late 2023.

"The city of Essaouira is beautiful and reminds me of Palestine," Saint Levant said, amidst the applause of the audience. He continued his speech by saying, "We will not surrender. We will return to our homeland. We will return to our homeland." Motherland" .

About Saint Levant Marwan was born in Jerusalem during the first intifada to an Algerian mother and a Serb-Palestinian father. He then moved to Gaza, where he lived for more than a decade before moving to Jordan and then the United States due to the war.

A true social media phenomenon, Saint is one of the artists creating art that draws on the diversity of his cultural heritage to champion the Palestinian cause, and “From Gaza with Love” is his first release.