The largest fertility clinic in Gaza was hit by an Israeli bomb in December, and the explosion destroyed five liquid nitrogen tanks that were kept in an embryology unit corner.
At the Al Basma IVF centre in Gaza City, almost 4,000 embryos and 1,000 more specimens of sperm and unfertilized eggs were destroyed when the extremely cold liquid evaporated and the temperature inside the tanks increased.
That one blast had a profound effect, illuminating the hidden cost of Israel's six-and-a-half-month-long assault on Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
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.
He said that at least half of the couples—those who are unable to generate enough sperm or eggs to create healthy embryos—would not be able to conceive again.
"My heart is divided into a million pieces," he said.
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.
Copyright©2024 Living Media India Limited. For reprint rights: Syndications Today
