Malala Yousafzai ‘overwhelmed and happy’ to be back in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar left for Saudi Arabia on Thursday to attend a special Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting focused on the situation in Palestine and the “immoral proposal” to displace its residents from their homeland, the foreign office said in a statement.
Dar, who also holds the diplomatic portfolio, will participate in the OIC foreign ministers’ session, scheduled to be held in Jeddah on Friday.
US President Donald Trump announced a plan to permanently uproot more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza after assuming office, saying his country would turn the area into an international beach resort.
The plan was widely denounced by majority-Muslim nations and global rights organizations, as the US suggested that the Palestinian population could relocate to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.
“Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar @MIshaqDar50, departed for Saudi Arabia to attend the Extraordinary Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers,” the foreign office announced in a social media post.
“The deteriorating situation in Palestine, resulting from Israeli aggression against Palestinians, the ensuing humanitarian crisis, and the illegal and immoral proposals of displacement of Palestinians from their ancestral homeland [will come under discussion],” it added. “At the conference, the DPM/FM will reaffirm Pakistan’s unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their just cause.”
Radio Pakistan reported earlier this week the Pakistani deputy prime minister will advocate for Israel’s full withdrawal from all occupied territories, including Jerusalem, and denounce the proposal for further Palestinian displacement.
Dar will also call for the restoration of the “inalienable rights” of the Palestinian people, including their right to return to their homeland and the establishment of a viable, contiguous and sovereign Palestinian state based on pre-June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.
Earlier this week, Arab leaders adopted an Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza worth $53 billion, which seeks to avoid Palestinian displacement, in contrast to Trump’s “Middle East Riviera” vision.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said on Tuesday Egypt, in cooperation with Palestinians, had worked on creating an administrative committee of independent, professional Palestinian technocrats to govern Gaza after the Israel-Gaza war ends.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the Arab League’s approval of the Egyptian plan, urging the United Nations to ensure the implementation of its resolutions calling for a two-state solution in the Middle East.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Nobel Peace Prize laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai returned to her Pakistan home village on Wednesday, 13 years after surviving an assassination attempt by militants.

Yousafzai was a 15-year-old schoolgirl when Pakistan Taliban militants boarded a bus and shot her in the head in the remote Swat Valley near the Afghanistan border.

She has made rare visits to the valley since, but it was the first time she returned to her childhood home in Shangla since being evacuated to the United Kingdom after the attack.

“As a child, I spent every holiday in Shangla, Pakistan, playing by the river and sharing meals with my extended family,” she said on X.

“It was such a joy for me to return there today — after 13 long years — to be surrounded by the mountains, dip my hands in the cold river and laugh with my beloved cousins. This place is very dear to my heart and I hope to return again and again.”

Yousafzai was accompanied by her father, husband, and brother for the high-security visit by helicopter which lasted just three hours.

Authorities have been cautious in allowing her to return to Shangla district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where militancy has soared following the return of the Afghan Taliban in Kabul in 2021.

The area was sealed off for several hours to provide security for her visit on Wednesday, which included a stop at local education projects backed by her Malala Fund.

“Her visit was kept highly secret to avoid any untoward incidents,” a senior administration official told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

“Even the locals were unaware of her plans to visit.”

The Pakistan Taliban is a separate but closely linked group to the Afghan Taliban and controlled swaths of the border regions at the time Yousafzai was shot.

Militants had ordered girls to stay home, but she continued to secretly go to school and wrote a blog about her experience.

She went on to become an education activist and the world’s youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner at age 17.

In January, she addressed Muslim world leaders at an education conference in Islamabad where she called for action against the Afghan Taliban, who have banned teenage girls from going to school.

Her hometown visit comes in a week marred by violence in Pakistan, with 18 civilians and soldiers killed in an overnight suicide attack on a military compound in the same province.

“I pray for peace in every corner of our beautiful country. The recent attacks, including in Bannu yesterday, are heartbreaking,” Yousafzai said of the attack.