‘Thousands of lives in one shell’: Gaza’s IVF embryos destroyed by Israeli strike

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. The Australian fertility rate is 1.63 births per woman, latest ABS figures show.

Despite Gaza’s poverty, couples facing infertility pursue IVF, some selling TVs and jewellery to pay the fees, Ghalayini said.

No time to celebrate

At least nine clinics in Gaza performed IVF, where eggs are collected from a woman’s ovaries and fertilised by sperm in a lab. The fertilised 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 October 7 attack on Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

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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 minus 180 degrees 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.

Thousands of potential lives destroyed

They crossed into Egypt on November 12 and in Cairo, her first ultrasound showed she was pregnant with twins and they were alive.

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: 5000 lives in one shell,” he said.

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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.

With Dawoud Abu Alkas in Gaza

Reuters

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