from
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/5000-lives-one-shell-gazas-ivf-embryos-destroyed-by-israeli-strike-2024-04-17/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqDQgAKgYICjC3oAwwsCYwnJaAAw&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=g&gaa_n=ARTJ-U_Xxon5axshXla-J8gwgzmVOWWvu-2YnjYIxPhxfRMEvqaK3qYs_F8HspPqO70NS9_kIDebne2ROc21&gaa_ts=661fed51&gaa_sig=bGaVefFxWcqAWi4L_lPPJVG4iH8jRFVmalHkzGT3ILRL_bvLGxG4kdm4gCftZZfym99wBpAVaFQbvz_9L4Ydiw%3D%3D

one important piece of info:
Large families are common in the enclave, where nearly half the
population is under 18 and the fertility rate is high at 3.38 births per
woman, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics.

Gaza's IVF embryos destroyed by Israeli strike
By Saleh Salem, Imad Creidi and Andrew Mills
April 17, 20247:36 AM PDTUpdated 4 hours ago

Item 1 of 6 Nitrogen tanks, where embryos were stored, lie at Al Basma
IVF Centre, Gaza's largest fertility clinic which was struck by an
Israeli shell during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza City, April 2, 2024.
REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
[1/6]Nitrogen tanks, where embryos were stored, lie at Al Basma IVF
Centre, Gaza's largest fertility clinic which was struck by an Israeli
shell during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian
Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza City, April 2, 2024. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu
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April 17 (Reuters) - When an Israeli shell struck Gaza's largest
fertility clinic in December, the explosion blasted the lids off five
liquid nitrogen tanks stored in a corner of the embryology unit.
As the ultra-cold liquid evaporated, the temperature inside the tanks
rose, destroying more than 4,000 embryos plus 1,000 more specimens of
sperm and unfertilized eggs stored at Gaza City's Al Basma IVF centre.
The impact of that single explosion was far-reaching -- an example of
the unseen toll Israel's six-and-a-half-month-old assault has had on the
2.3 million people of Gaza.
The embryos in those tanks were the last hope for hundreds of
Palestinian couples facing infertility.
"We know deeply what these 5,000 lives, or potential lives, meant for
the parents, either for the future or for the past," said Bahaeldeen
Ghalayini, 73, the Cambridge-trained obstetrician and gynaecologist who
established the clinic in 1997.
At least half of the couples — those who can no longer produce sperm or
eggs to make viable embryos — will not have another chance to get
pregnant, he said.
"My heart is divided into a million pieces," he said.
Asked on Wednesday by Reuters about the incident, the Israeli military's
press desk said it was looking into the reports. Israel denies
intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure and has accused Hamas
fighters of operating from medical facilities, which Hamas denies.
Three years of fertility treatment was a psychological roller coaster
for Seba Jaafarawi. The retrieval of eggs from her ovaries was painful,
the hormone injections had strong side-effects and the sadness when two
attempted pregnancies failed seemed unbearable.
Jaafarawi, 32, and her husband could not get pregnant naturally and
turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF), which is widely available in Gaza.
Large families are common in the enclave, where nearly half the
population is under 18 and the fertility rate is high at 3.38 births per
woman, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics. Britain's
fertility rate is 1.63 births per woman.
Despite Gaza's poverty, couples facing infertility pursue IVF, some
selling TVs and jewellery to pay the fees, Al Ghalayini said.
NO TIME TO CELEBRATE
At least nine clinics in Gaza performed IVF, where eggs are collected
from a woman's ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab. The fertilized
eggs, called embryos, are often frozen until the optimal time for
transfer to a woman's uterus. Most frozen embryos in Gaza were stored at
the Al Basma centre.
In September, Jaafarawi became pregnant, her first successful IVF attempt.
"I did not even have time to celebrate the news," she said.
Two days before her first scheduled ultrasound scan, Hamas launched the
Oct. 7 attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages,
according to Israeli tallies.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched an all-out assault that has
since killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health
authorities.
Jaafarawi worried: "How would I complete my pregnancy? What would happen
to me and what would happen to the ones inside my womb?"
Her ultrasound never happened and Ghalayini closed his clinic, where an
additional five of Jaafarawi's embryos were stored.
As the Israeli attacks intensified, Mohammed Ajjour, Al Basma's chief
embryologist, started to worry about liquid nitrogen levels in the five
specimen tanks. Top ups were needed every month or so to keep the
temperature below -180C in each tank, which operate independent of
electricity.
After the war began, Ajjour managed to procure one delivery of liquid
nitrogen, but Israel cut electricity and fuel to Gaza, and most
suppliers closed.
At the end of October, Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza and soldiers
closed in on the streets around the IVF centre. It became too dangerous
for Ajjour to check the tanks.
Jaafarawi knew she should rest to keep her fragile pregnancy safe, but
hazards were everywhere: she climbed six flights of stairs to her
apartment because the elevator stopped working; a bomb levelled the
building next door and blasted out windows in her flat; food and water
became scarce.
Instead of resting, she worried.
"I got very scared and there were signs that I would lose (the
pregnancy)," she said.
Jaafarawi bled a little bit after she and her husband left home and
moved south to Khan Younis. The bleeding subsided, but her fear did not.
'5,000 LIVES IN ONE SHELL'
They crossed into Egypt on Nov. 12 and in Cairo, her first ultrasound
showed she was pregnant with twins and they were alive.
But after a few days, she experienced painful cramps, bleeding and a
sudden shift in her belly. She made it to hospital, but the miscarriage
had already begun.
"The sounds of me screaming and crying at the hospital are still
(echoing) in my ears," she said.
The pain of loss has not stopped.
"Whatever you imagine or I tell you about how hard the IVF journey is,
only those who have gone through it know what it's really like," she said.
Jaafarawi wanted to return to the war zone, retrieve her frozen embryos
and attempt IVF again.
But it was soon too late.
Ghalayini said a single Israeli shell struck the corner of the centre,
blowing up the ground floor embryology lab. He does not know if the
attack specifically targeted the lab or not.
"All these lives were killed or taken away: 5,000 lives in one shell,"
he said.
In April, the embryology lab was still strewn with broken masonry,
blown-up lab supplies and, amid the rubble, the liquid nitrogen tanks,
according to a Reuters-commissioned journalist who visited the site.
The lids were open and, still visible at the bottom of one of the tanks,
a basket was filled with tiny colour-coded straws containing the ruined
microscopic embryos.
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Reporting by Andrew Mills, Imad Creidi and Saleh Salem in Doha,
additional reporting by Dawoud Abu Alkas in Gaza Writing by Andrew Mills
Editing by Peter Graff

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