Qatar’s Sheikha Mozah accused Israel of denying Palestinian children their right to an education, at the U.N. headquarters on Wednesday. 
The consort to the Emir of Qatar called for action to be taken against Israel for bomb-damaging schools during its three-week Gaza onslaught.
“Upholding the right to education requires protecting educational institutions and all their staff from attacks during times of conflict,” Sheikha Mozah told diplomats.
“This protection can only be ensured through the presence of two essential elements: sanctions and punishment.”
The education campaigner called for the “activation of existing conventions” and “punishing the perpetrators and obliging them to offer appropriate compensation for any human or material damage resulting from their actions”.
During Israel’s aggression towards the Palestinians in late December-early January, Sheikha Mozah wrote to the 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”.
The royal was writing in response to Israeli artillery shelling near Al Fakhura school, in the densely packed Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City on Jan 6, while an estimated 280 families sheltered inside from the violence.
Sheikha Mozah said she would commit all her “power and efforts” to helping Palestinian schoolchildren.
“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 realize 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).
Sheikha Mozah called for bolstering of international efforts to safeguard the right to education and to use sanctions and other forms of punishment against those responsible for damaging schools. “Because we believe in the value of life and appreciate the culture of peace, we shall not let our children give into despair or frustration,” she said. “That is why we must make sure that through accountability to combat anyone who has no respect for life and humankind and anyone who does not treasure the right to education.”
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