Nadeen Ayoub will be the first ‘Miss Palestine’ to compete at the Miss Universe 2025 pageant in Thailand this coming November, the Miss Universe Organization (MUO) confirmed to CNN on Sunday.
“The Miss Universe Organization proudly welcomes delegates from across the globe, celebrating diversity, cultural exchange, and the empowerment of women,” Miguel Ángel Martínez, MUO head of communications, wrote in an email to CNN.
“Ms. Ayoub, an accomplished advocate and model from Palestine, embodies the resilience and determination that define our platform,” Martínez added.
Ayoub will compete against women representing more than 130 other countries and territories in the 74th annual competition.
Adela Cojab Moadeb, who competed in Miss Universe Israel 2025, welcomed Ayoub’s participation in the competition in an Instagram video. She asserted that the Palestinian people deserved a representative “that stands against extremism” and asked that Ayoub use her platform to promote peace.
About Miss Palestine
The 27-year-old beauty queen was originally crowned Miss Palestine in 2022, The National reported. Despite competing in Miss Earth, the New York Post reported that no evidence could be found to suggest she had ever competed for the title of Miss Palestine.
Plans to hold a Miss Palestine competition were canceled in 2009 after Hamas decried the Palestinian Authority for “spreading moral corruption” in response to the event.
Speaking to Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, she said: “After Miss Earth, I was supposed [to] go to Miss Universe, but I postponed it because I did not want to go when genocide was happening.
"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.”
“There hasn’t been another Miss Palestine since 2022, due to the genocide."
She later wrote on Instagram, “Today, I step onto the Miss Universe stage not just with a title but with a truth… I represent every Palestinian woman and child whose strength the world needs to see.
"We are more than our suffering - we are resilience, hope, and the heartbeat of a homeland that lives on through us.”
While the Jewish Chronicle reported that she lives in the West Bank city of Ramallah, The New York Post reported that she was born in the US, raised in Canada, and now lives in Dubai.