Culture & Arts
Saint Levant books forty tour dates, none in Gaza
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
Saint Levant will play more than 40 dates on four continents this autumn without setting foot in the territory that gave his debut album its name.
The Palestinian singer, born Marwan Abdelhamid, announced the Afandi World Tour in mid-July; Arab News reported that the Live Nation-produced run opens in Boston on 12 September and takes in Brooklyn, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco before crossing to Europe.
The Music Universe reported the European leg begins in Dublin on 29 October and the tour ends in Muscat on 12 December, with Türkiye Today reporting a 10 December stop at Istanbul's Volkswagen Arena.
No Palestinian city appears on the announced itinerary. Speaking at the first Doha Film Festival last November, in remarks reported by Daily Sabah, the singer told the audience: "When we were 7, we went to Jordan, and I haven't returned to Gaza since."
The gap between the audience and the ground it sings about is the shape of his career.
Britannica records that he was born in Jerusalem on 6 October 2000, at the start of the second intifada, and that fighting between Fatah and Hamas in 2007 pushed his family out of the Gaza Strip to Amman, where he stayed for the next decade.
Accounts differ on how long he actually lived in Gaza: his own website says seven formative years, while Highsnobiety's timeline of his career describes his first EP as dedicated to his first ten years there.
Britannica also records that he enrolled at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2017 to study international relations, graduating in 2022, and that he opened a TikTok account in 2020 to talk about Palestinian history and politics before turning to music. Two early tracks from that period, "Jerusalem Freestyle" and "Haifa in a Tesla", already carried the politics, according to GRAMMY.com.
The commercial breakthrough came in November 2022 with "Very Few Friends", a song moving between Arabic, French and English. NME reported in April 2023 that it had passed 50 million Spotify streams; by January 2024, Arab America put the figure at close to 70 million.
Billboard, publishing a Billboard Arabia cover story in March 2025, reported that he had held a place on the Billboard Arabia Top 100 Artists chart for 46 consecutive weeks.
The debut album, DEIRA, released in June 2024 through SALXCO and Universal Arabic Music, takes its name from a hotel on the Gaza City seafront built by the singer's father in 2000, the year the family moved there.
Al Arabiya reported that the Deira was a known stop for visitors, journalists and diplomats before it was destroyed during the war in late 2023.
Middle East Eye, reporting the title track's release with the Gaza rapper MC Abdul, quoted the singer's account of how it was built: from mud, because importing cement was impossible at the time.
He made his Coachella debut in the Gobi Tent on 13 April 2024, in a slot scheduled against the No Doubt reunion, AFP reported.
Middle East Eye reported his opening line to the crowd — "Coachella, my name is Saint Levant and I was born in Jerusalem and raised in Gaza" — followed by a statement that Gaza had been undergoing what he called a brutal genocide for six months and Palestine a brutal occupation for 75 years.
Introducing "5am in Paris", released days earlier, he told the audience it was about exile, AFP reported, calling it a feeling Palestinians know too well. Cairo 360 reported that the Gaza-based Sol Band appeared virtually during the set.
AFP noted the performance followed the Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna, the first Palestinian to play the festival, in 2023.
The money side of the work is documented in patches. Arab America reported in January 2024 that proceeds from "From Gaza, With Love" merchandise were pledged to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.
L'Orient-Le Jour reported in June 2024 on the launch of a 2048 grant for Palestinian artists alongside the album; NYS Music describes the 2048 Foundation as providing financial support and mentorship to Palestinian artists. Neither the total disbursed nor the number of recipients has been published.
One collaboration drew criticism from within the Palestinian literary world. The National reported in July 2025 that a Huda Beauty campaign raised $210,000, originally pledged to Palestinian agriculture and then redirected in full to Médecins Sans Frontières as aid entry worsened.
The same report carried a since-deleted Instagram comment from the poet Mosab Abu Toha asking, "Do you really care about Gaza?" CNN reported that the singer performed at the Together for Palestine fundraiser at Wembley in September 2025, on a bill organised by Brian Eno.
He told GRAMMY.com from his home in Jordan last June: "You can't claim Palestine and not talk."
What is not established is whether return is a legal question or only a practical one for him. No application to enter Gaza, and no refusal by any authority controlling access, appears in the public record. Nor has any decision been published on whether the Deira site will be rebuilt. Tickets for the autumn dates went on general sale on 24 July.
