The emotional and spiritual heart failure of the criminals and companies responsible for the genocide has reached the Palestinians in physical form.

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Heart failure is not only the cause but also the most common final physical outcome of forced starvation.
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The sustained lack of nutrition forces the body to break down and consume its own muscle and organs.

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In this process the heart is often the last thing to give out: 
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“Malnutrition impacts all aspects of the body’s function. Nutrition is the fuel for your cells, so when your cells are starved, it impacts every organ in your body," Dr. Tanya Haj Hassan, pediatric intensive care doctor and dedicated human rights advocate with several trips to Gaza said on Al Jazeeras programme Inside Story.

"You break down your muscle, and your heart is a muscle. So eventually your heart isn’t able to pump anymore.”
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According to specialists, when faced with starvation you either die from sustained arrhythmia causing heart failure or a sudden heart attack.
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Israel's forced starvation of the Palestinians is a last attempt to continue their outright genocide while concealing it as a famine and disguising their execution site as aid.

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It is unspeakably cruel and heartless in ways there are no words to fully express.

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The author of the book Mass Starvation Alex de Waal recently said to The Guardian: "Those who inflict starvation are aware of this, they know what they're doing is actually dismantling a society." 

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The direct connection between the world's hearts and the Palestinian's hearts

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The Israeli-European-American regime has done everything to wear down the hearts of the Palestinians and keep them from reaching ours.

But even with all the greatest weapons and latest technology in the world, they have been unsuccessful.

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The heart of humanity is still beating. And has shown itself in possibly the largest - when you put them all together - global protests in human history.

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The emotionally and spiritually deprived Israeli regime and their western accomplices - have not succeeded in harvesting our hearts out of our chests like they do with all the ressources they continuously trespass Indigenous territories to violently steal.

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Like Thiago Ávila from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla says: "All they have is their bombs, their violence and their hate. We have all the rest." 

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Courage is built in caring hearts
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We often associate courage with outer strength or a lack of fear.

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But the real root of courage is love.
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When a parent can show temporary superhuman courage to save their child from danger - it is not because they are necessarily inherently courageous as a person, but because they care enough.
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The courageous care shown among the Palestinians towards each other shows that the human spirit truly lives in the heart.

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We have seen it throughout the past two years - countless Palestinians risking their life to rescue people around them.

Often even when the person they are rescuing is already presumably dead, rescuers will run through live bombing in attempt to retrieve them and give them an honorable burial.

And now even faced with acute starvation that not only breaks down the body, but also tires out all emotional and psychological functions of the people who experiences it - somehow there is still a chore insistence on empathy.

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The power generator of the body

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It is said the heart emits a far greater electromagnetic signal than the brain. And that the heart send 400x as many signals to the brain as the brain does to the heart.

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The heart is the electric power generator of our bodies. Experts in quantum physics say that when we have heart-brain coherence and our cells are in a vibration of love, joy, peace or deep connection, the energy transmitted from the heart can be measured up to 9 meters outside of us.

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Awdah Hathaleen was taken from his friends and family on July 28th.

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In Al Jazeera's reporting on Awdah Hathaleen's murder by settler Yinon Levi in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, 'everyone they speak to remembers him as the kindest person, with a brave, peaceful heart':
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"He was “tayyeb, salim”, they said, using the Arabic words for “kind” and “peaceful."

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The heart of the soul

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Journalist Synne Bjerkestrand who is part of Kollektivist said in our recent podcast episode, which we recorded while she was in the West Bank: 

"I've never met anyone as generous and caring as the people I've met here." 

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Loving hearts are courageous hearts.

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And with nothing the Palestinians have kept love at the chore.

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Even with Israel killing more journalists than ever before in history, their stories made it out to the rest of us.

We have seen honest expression of their hearts:

"The soul of my soul" - a beautiful sentiment of love and connection in the face of horror.

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As the layers of humanity are peeled back and we are all stripped bare to our essence. We see everyone as who they really are: 

Now we know who the monsters are.

Now we know who the cowards are.

Now we know who the opportunists are.

But we also know who the caring hearts live in. Who the rescuers are. Who the courageous are.
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It's up to the rest of us to show that our hearts are not just alive physically - but also emotionally and spiritually as the Palestinians are.

To let their care for each other awaken and open our hearts so we find a way to stop the acute forced starvation and end the genocide.