My mother, may her soul rest in peace, shaped my personality; thanks to her, I have acquired many values, good traits and skills.

No one in the Emirates is above the law and accountability.

I used to sleep in the desert once every week, now it is every two weeks, most of the time alone. It's beautiful. What I enjoy is taking my food and cooking for myself.

I want Dubai to be a place where everybody from all over the world meets each other, don't think of fighting or hate, just love it, enjoy their sport, and that's it.

My theory on life is that life is beautiful. Life doesn't change. You have a day, and a night, and a month, and a year. We people change - we can be miserable or we can be happy. It's what you make of your life.

There is no Dubai and Abu Dhabi; we are one. Whoever doesn't understand this should do their homework before they start talking. We will be there for each other when we need it.

You either do something yourself, you create something, or you follow somebody. If you want to follow anybody, you have to wait for them to get in front of you to follow them. I want to be a winner, so I want to create. I cannot lie back and be idle, because I want everybody to work as hard as I do. How can I ask people to do things I'm not doing?

I don't have proper places to run.

I feel a freedom when I start running. If I don't train, I feel like everyone else in the Gaza Strip.

I have a coach but there's nobody at my level in Gaza. I have to do most of my training sessions on my own.

I practice on the roads of Gaza as we don't have good stadiums and tracks so I gave my best.

If there's an incursion I don't go out of the house.

I am very optimistic, and I wish that God almighty grants me success to get a qualifying time. Only then can I go to the Olympics. If this happens I will be the first Palestinian athlete to gain a qualifying time. This will be a big achievement.

If the Palestinian Olympic Committee or Palestinian Federation provide good facilities to the athletes then maybe I can become better than these Bahraini or Qatari athletes.

The right to a quality education is, I believe, the perfect path to bridge the gap between different cultures and to reconcile various civilizations. Without such a right, the values of liberty, justice and equality will have no meaning. Ignorance is by far the biggest danger and threat to humankind.

People tend to believe that to be modern you have to disengage from your heritage, but it's not true.

Sixty-six percent is the literacy rate in the Arab world. We have 58 million illiterate among adults in our part of the world.

Education can also be used as a soft power and as a soft force to transform societies. When I say transform societies it means we can tackle issues in political, social, cultural, economic areas. These are the most important things.

Education in Emergencies signifies that the right to education is being threatened by natural causes such as tsunamis, but also, unfortunately, by man-made causes.

I have lived with my husband more than I have with my parents... I live beside him, and know his worries, his hopes, and his dreams for his nation. We believe that things happen by design, not in an arbitrary way. And we believe it is our duty to make things happen.