{{Celebrations have erupted across the Palestinian territories at news that a wedding singer from the Gaza Strip has won the Arab Idol talent TV show.}}<\/p>\n
Mohammed Assaf, 23, was a virtual unknown until a few weeks ago but has now become a local hero.<\/p>\n
The contest, held in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, was watched by millions across the region.<\/p>\n
Fireworks were being set off in Gaza City and East Jerusalem as revellers thronged the streets.<\/p>\n
Assaf was declared the winner on Saturday evening, a day after he competed in a final against two other singers – Ahmed Jamal from Egypt and Farah Youssef from Syria.<\/p>\n
The talent contest has been broadcast on the Beirut-based MBC TV channel since March.<\/p>\n
His last solo song, performed on Friday, had a political edge, asking for the Palestinian traditional scarf to be raised and calling for reconciliation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Celebrations have erupted across the Palestinian territories at news that a wedding singer from the Gaza Strip has won the Arab Idol talent TV show.}} Mohammed Assaf, 23, was a virtual unknown until a few weeks ago but has now become a local hero. The contest, held in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, was watched by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8625"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8625"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}