Israel ‘killed’ 5,000 fetuses in one attack
Last Updated on April 18, 2024 3:41 am
In December last year, an Israeli shell hit Gaza’s largest fertility clinic. In that explosion, the cover of five liquid nitrogen tanks stored in a corner of the embryology unit burst, a shocking incident took place.
Reuters reports that the attack caused the super-cooled liquid to evaporate, causing the temperature inside the tank to rise. In this, 4,000 embryos and another 1,000 sperm samples and fertilized eggs stored at the Al Basma IVF Center in Gaza City were ‘destroyed’.
The impact of that single explosion was far-reaching; Israel’s six-and-a-half-month massacre of 2.3 million people in Gaza is an example of unprecedented brutality.
According to Reuters, the embryos in the tank were the last hope for hundreds of Palestinian couples facing infertility.
The clinic was founded in 1997 by Cambridge-trained obstetrician and gynecologist Bahldin Ghalaini (73). “We know what these 5,000 lives or potential lives mean for the parents’ future or past,” he said.
“At least half of couples – those who are no longer able to produce sperm or eggs to create viable embryos – will never have a chance to have children,” Baheldin added.
According to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, large families are very common in the Gaza Strip. Almost half of the population is under 18 and the fertility rate is 3.38 per woman.