One Heart for Peace

One Heart for Peace, known in French as Un cœur pour la paix, is a French humanitarian association established in 2005 by Muriel Haïm. Its central purpose is to assist Palestinian children born with serious congenital heart defects and to use their treatment as a practical channel for cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. The organization emerged from a medical gap: children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who required complex pediatric cardiac surgery did not have access to a dedicated local service capable of treating many severe congenital malformations. One Heart for Peace therefore developed a prevention and treatment program that helps identify children in need, arrange specialist care, and fund operations. The association’s medical work is carried out through cooperation involving Israeli and Palestinian doctors, with treatment taking place at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Palestinian children with serious, potentially fatal heart conditions can receive surgery without charge through the program. The model depends on Israeli pediatric cardiac specialists and Palestinian medical colleagues working together across political and administrative boundaries. In addition to the direct medical benefit, the partnership is intended to build professional relationships and demonstrate that sustained cooperation remains possible even when a broader political settlement has not been reached. The organization presents the children and the medical teams as evidence of human solidarity and practical coexistence. Visitors, political figures, and journalists have reportedly observed the program at Hadassah Hospital, where the joint work provides a visible example of Israeli-Palestinian collaboration in healthcare. The association’s wider mission also includes bringing the two communities closer through related initiatives in health and education, although the available reference material gives greater detail about its cardiac-care program than about individual educational projects. One Heart for Peace is therefore best understood not as a commercial consumer brand but as the public-facing identity of a humanitarian association and its cross-border medical program. Its activities combine charitable fundraising, access to specialized pediatric surgery, prevention, medical coordination, and peace-building through professional cooperation. The reference material does not provide reliable details about its current leadership, annual finances, organizational scale, number of patients treated, or present operational status beyond describing its program and French institutional identity.

One Heart for Peace was created in France in 2005 by Muriel Haïm in response to the lack of specialized pediatric cardiac surgery available to many Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Children born with congenital heart defects can require urgent diagnosis and technically demanding operations; without treatment, some of these conditions may be fatal. The association was formed to organize prevention and treatment, connect patients with specialist care, and help finance operations that families could not otherwise access. The organization’s principal medical arrangement is based at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Palestinian children with serious heart malformations are treated there free of charge through a program supported by the association. Israeli and Palestinian doctors participate in the work, creating a clinical partnership that extends beyond the immediate patient-care relationship. The program links Palestinian children and their families with Israeli specialists while also involving Palestinian medical colleagues in the care process. This cooperation became a defining feature of the association’s identity. One Heart for Peace describes the medical program as both a humanitarian intervention and a demonstration that cooperation can continue despite the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The collaboration has attracted visitors, politicians, and journalists interested in seeing an operational example of cross-community work in Jerusalem. The children treated through the program are presented as a human and practical reason for cooperation, while the medical teams provide an institutional framework in which that cooperation can take place. The association’s stated mission is broader than surgery alone. It seeks to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer through joint activities in healthcare and education, with prevention and treatment forming the most clearly documented part of its work. The available reference material does not establish a detailed chronology of individual programs, changes in governance, patient totals, fundraising campaigns, or institutional partnerships. It also does not provide sufficient information to document the association’s current executive structure or its latest activities. Accordingly, the organization’s documented history is centered on its 2005 creation, its pediatric cardiac-care mission, and its use of medical cooperation as a peace-building mechanism.

• 2005

  Association established

  [1]One heart for peaceen.wikipedia.org

  Muriel Haïm created One Heart for Peace in France to help Palestinian children with serious congenital heart disease and to promote cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians through healthcare and education.

A humanitarian and peace-building organization using access to pediatric cardiac care and joint Israeli-Palestinian medical work to support vulnerable children and encourage practical cooperation.

• Medical humanitarian program · 2005

  Pediatric cardiac-care program

  The association organizes and supports diagnosis, referral, and treatment for Palestinian children with severe congenital heart malformations. The program enables eligible children to receive cardiac operations free of charge at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where Israeli specialists and Palestinian medical colleagues cooperate in delivering care. Its purpose is both clinical and humanitarian: to address conditions that may otherwise be lethal and to overcome barriers to access to highly specialized pediatric surgery.

• Peace-building initiative

  Health and education cooperation initiatives

  One Heart for Peace also identifies joint healthcare and education activities as part of its broader mission to bring Israeli and Palestinian communities closer. The available reference material confirms this area of activity but does not specify the names, locations, dates, or detailed formats of individual initiatives.

1. 1One heart for peaceen.wikipedia.org
2. 2One Heart for Peace official French websiteuncoeurpourlapaix.org