Operationalizing Global Health and Peace for Health Security and Solidarity: Does this Apply in Palestine, Ukraine, and Venezuela?
Authors: Alkhaldi Mohammed , Hamdonah Zeana , Khatib Lyne El 
Published: April 2024

The interrelationality of health and peace is complex, multifactorial,
and imbued with political and economic challenges. Peace and health
outcomes reflect shared fundamental values related to the achievement of
a balanced holistic condition on the individual and collective level.
This causal relationship between social inequity and health requires
special attention be paid to the impact of political instability and
structural violence on undermining health systems in conflict zones. The
mutual dependency between peace and health means that peace cannot be
achieved without the existence of physical, mental, social, and
spiritual health, and holistic health cannot be sustained under violent
conditions. The interrelationality of peace and health as mutual
conditions shape our understanding of global solidarity in relation to
health diplomacy and peace promotion, if addressed equally across all
conflict zones This prospective analytical review discusses the complex
interplay between peace and health in three global contexts utilizing
contextual analysis of the unique interdisciplinary factors at play that
contribute to, or hinder the advancement of global health and peace in
Palestine, Venezuela, and Ukraine. Peace is a multifaceted phenomenon
that necessitates the participation, dedication, and action of all
sectors and stakeholders in the global society, including health
professionals. Both the “right to health” and the “right to peace”
can be realized through two approaches: (1) holding governments
accountable for maintaining peace and protecting health systems, and (2)
the implementation of policies and actions that promote nonviolence
education, intergroup communication, and social justice.
Highlights: Countries around the globe are facing multiple,
(re)emerging and complex crises and conflicts, aggravated by increasing
social, political, and economic pressures that mainly impact people’s
health and health systems. The existing global governance structures of
peacebuilding for health are powerless, ineffective, and still unclear,
thus setting health actors up for failure, when it comes to sustaining
long-lasting changes and addressing the root causes of crisis. Crises
including political pressures, historic suffering due to coloniality,
protracted conflicts, lack of advocacy and firm international laws
enforcement, hypocritical standards of intervention, absence of health
equity, and an absence of ethical and human rights frameworks, all
impede the creation of peaceful societies that promote health and vice
versa. Palestine, Ukraine, and Venezuela reflect diverse contexts where
clear disparities are present in global solidarity, humanitarian
intervention, global interest, advocacy, and willingness to promote the
health-peace nexus are reported. Continued impunity, partiality, and
injustice undermine health-peace promotion and scale up global health
disruptions, and the shared challenges of suboptimal health status
should be sufficiently handled based on equal rights, equity,
accountability, and transparency regardless of variations in geography,
ethnicity, region, political context.