The war has forced schools in Gaza to shut down and suspend the current academic year, depriving 608,000 students of their right to education.
Qatar’s Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has called out the lack of action by the United Nations’ cultural entity (UNECO) on Wednesday over the Israeli attacks on schools and civilians amid its Gaza onslaught.
The Qatari royal’s remarks came during the “One Heart for Palestine” summit in Turkiye that was hosted by Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan. The event gathered the first spouses from around the world to discuss an end to the ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza.
“I had at that time a lot of respect for this organisation and a measured and balanced bet on working together to change the situation of education and protect it. However, I was recently shocked by UNESCO’s silence regarding students being killed and schools being demolished in Gaza,” Sheikha Moza said.
“We must criticise silence wherever it may be, such as when our countries had to pressure us to stop the war in order to save what could be saved in the health sector and provide the people of Gaza with the necessary needs for life,” Sheikha Moza added.
The Qatari royal, the mother of Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, was appointed as the UNESCO Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education in January 2003. Her appointment came in recognition of her global commitment to education.
Sheikha Moza founded the Education Above All Foundation (EAA) in 2012 which has since provided a vital lifeline for students forced out of their classrooms globally due to crises and conflict.
In 2009, EAA established the Al Fakhoora programme following deadly attacks in Gaza and was aptly named after a school in the Jabalia refugee camp.
The programme rebuilt educational facilities destroyed by previous Israeli attacks while providing children and youth with much-needed psycho-social support following the traumatic event.
However, the Al Fakhoora House was destroyed by an Israeli strike in Gaza on October 10 under the ongoing war on the Strip. Since the start of the war on October 7, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have killed more than 11,500 Palestinians, including 4,710 children.
Sheikha Moza told the summit in Turkiye that “Palestine’s children are the embodiment of dignity”.
“They teach us integrity and resilience. I bow to you, children of Palestine. You will always be our source of pride,” she said.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said on Tuesday that five out of 1,000 school students in Gaza have been killed since the start of the war. At least 130 teachers and school staff have also been killed during the same period.
The war has forced schools in Gaza to shut down and suspend the current academic year, depriving 608,000 students of their right to education.
“It is sad to see that the international community is failing to apply pressure to Israel to, at the very least, stop targeting hospitals and schools amid the devastation it is wreaking,” Sheikha Moza said.
‘Fabricated narrative’
Sheikha Moza’s speech also tapped into the fabricated Israeli narratives, saying that the world has “lived with this reality for decades”.
“We have watched Israel promote fabricated narratives. These false narratives have been refuted by many historians, including Israelis themselves. These narratives have been allowed to dominate the collective imagination, and those who dare to challenge them face accusations of anti-Semitism,” she said.
Israel and pro-Israeli groups have repeatedly resorted to describing all movements and support to the Palestinian cause as “anti-semitic”. Sheikha Moza noted that the accusations further limit Semitism “only to Jewish people as if they alone have this heritage.”
“Even we, as Semitic Arabs, have accepted it without thought or discussion. In any debate, we try to shield ourselves from accusations of anti-Semitism – forgetting that we are Semites ourselves. But my point is: we do not accept any hostile acts toward humanity, wherever they may come from,” she said.
Israel has been losing its grip over the narrative as the world witnesses the daily atrocities in Gaza.
Deputy Director-General of the Public Diplomacy Department Emanuel Nachshon told the Knesset’s Hasbara Committee on Tuesday that Tel Aviv ran out of budget for the hasbara apparatus, as per a Jerusalem Post report.
The hasbara, Hebrew for “explanation”, is the Israeli propaganda strategy that has long attempted to promote the Zionist regime’s discourse by portraying a positive image of its occupation of Palestine to the world.
The strategy mainly targets the public through mass media and has expanded to social media platforms, a phenomenon labelled by scholar Miriyam Aouragh as “Hasbara 2.0”.
The news marked yet another Israeli failure in taking control over the narrative of the occupation of Palestine, with all of its crimes exposed to the world throughout its current aggression on Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen admitted on Monday that Tel Aviv has come under more global pressure since last month and suggested it has lost its control of the narrative.
“We managed to draw the coverage of the massacre and the difficult images for over a month. But in recent days, the world media mainly shows images from Gaza,” Cohen said.
Data shared by The Economist last week showed a clear decline in sympathy for Israel online by analysing one million posts from Instagram, X, and YouTube between October 7 and 23.
Using dmr, an ai-technology firm, the Economist gathered posts with hashtags on social media that showed support for Israel and Palestine.
The AI technology found both sides had an equal number of support on October 7, but sharply decreased by October 19 when pro-Palestine support became 3.9 more common than support for Israel.
Seeking to prevent Israel’s PR crisis, billionaires in the United States, Israel’s biggest backer, reportedly joined efforts in hopes of gathering some $50 million donations for a pro-Israel media campaign called “Facts for Peace”, Semafor reported last week.