The first-ever Miss Palestine contestant in the Miss Universe pageant married the son of Hamas’ most-wanted prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, and even named a child after him, The Post has learned.
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Strutting through preliminary rounds ahead of the pending pageant, Ayoub has kept most of her personal life under wraps — until now.
Years-old screenshots and social media posts obtained by The Post show she took pains to hide that she was once married to Sharaf Barghouti — son of the infamous Fatah leader serving five life sentences in Israel for orchestrating terror attacks that killed five people in 2001 and 2002.
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Social media posts show Ayoub tied the knot with Sharaf Barghouti in 2016, later welcoming a son named Marwan three years later — seemingly in tribute to the convicted killer.
However, it is unclear if the pair remains married. A family member reached for comment confirmed to The Post that the two had been married, but denied knowledge of their current status.
Photos reviewed by The Post show the beauty queen cozying up with her husband and posing alongside Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa — a prominent Fatah figure herself. She also appears in photos published by Palestinian outlet Panet.il with Fadwa and other members of the Barghouti clan.
A photo posted to social media featuring Marwan Barghouti’s sons, Arab and Sharaf, with Nadeen Ayoub.Fadwa Barghouti pictured in a photograph with Nadeen Ayoub posted years ago to social media, but later deleted.
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She is a self-proclaimed fitness instructor, and an investigation by The Post revealed she taught workout classes at the Ramallah-based gym “IQ Fitness,” which is owned by Qassam Barghouthi, another of the convicted terrorist’s sons who also spent time in Israeli prison before he was acquitted of carrying out an ambush and four attempted killings.
There a many photos of Ayoub on the gym’s Instagram and Facebook pages, with at least one post referring to her as “Nadeen Barghouti.”
Her current verified account associated with her Miss Palestine title, @nadeen.m.ayoub, still followed one of the private pages linked to her since-deleted posts as of last week. However, that changed after The Post reached out to the verified account for comment.
Not everything vanished. In a still-public 2016 post, a relative congratulated her marriage: “Congrats to Nadeen Ayoub on her marriage, love you,” wrote her sister, Zina Ayoub.
In another still-online post from Oct. 30, 2019, an apparent Barghouti family member posted a photo of a baby apparently named “Marwan Sharaf Marwan Al-Barghouti,” tagging Ayoub and husband Sharaf.
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Ayoub competed in a different pageant — Miss Earth — in 2022, but claimed she postponed plans to go to Miss Universe after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack by Hamas, she told The National.
Despite her ineligibility, Ayoub placed as second runner-up in the 2022 pageant, winning the “Miss Earth-Water” title. A representative for the pageant did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
“We had the Miss Palestine beauty competition and I got the title,” said Ayoub in the September 2022 interview posted to YouTube. “There hasn’t been another Miss Palestine since 2022, due to the genocide … I wanted to focus more on staying behind the scenes because the spotlight was supposed to be on the people in Palestine who are suffering, rather than me.”
Ayoub’s reference to “genocide” in Gaza has caused outrage in Israel and among its supporters.
So forget the side-eye – the real story is the terror-tie. Nadeen Ayoub brought a doctored video, propaganda dress, and a résumé that comes with more Barghoutis than a Ramallah family reunion.
Miss Universe contestants usually hide bad hair days. Nadeen Ayoub tried to hide an entire Barghouti. Kind of like the “hunger-striking” Marwan Barghouti tried to hide that snack in prison.
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media