Sheikha Mozah at the UN

Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, president of the UN General Assembly, lauded the efforts of H H Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned in helping Palestinian schoolchildren saying “As you may know, she has been working tirelessly to restore as quickly as possible the scores of UN-sponsored schools that were damaged during the horrific invasion of the Palestinian territory of Gaza two months ago.”

At the assembly, Sheikha Mozah said she would commit all her “power and efforts” to helping Palestinian schoolchildren and descried the Al Fakhoora campaign, which saw Qatari students show “solidarity towards their counterparts in Gaza against the latest military invasion.”

“Can we, as an international community, understand what it means to have students deliberately denied their basic right to education by setting up check points preventing them from reaching their schools and universities?” she asked. “So we realise the danger behind bombing educational institutions bearing the UN flag, the symbol of righteousness and legitimacy?” added Sheikha Mozah, a special envoy on education for the UN’s Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).

During the invasion of Gaza, Sheikha Mozah wrote to UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to express her “profound condemnation of and concern over the destruction of educational institutions and the targeting of students and teachers.” She was writing in response to Israeli shelling near Al Fakhoora school, in the Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City on January 6, while an estimated 280 families sheltered inside.

Later that day, Sheikha Mozah met with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Filed under Qatar
Tagged Ban Ki-Moon, Education, Palestine, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Thani, UNESCO, United Nations.