IVF clinics have destroyed, hopeless of maternity

“My nerves are broken,” said Noura, a 26 -year -old Palestinian woman, explaining that she was “left with nothing”.

After years of IVF treatment, she got pregnant in July 2023. “I was delighted,” she recalls, describing the moment when she saw the positive pregnancy test.

She and her husband Mohamed decided to store two other embryos in Al-Basma Fertility Center in Gaza City, who had helped them to design, in the hope of having more children in the future.

“I thought my dream was finally realized,” she said. “But the day the Israelis entered, something in me said it was over.”

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the cross -border attack in Hamas on October 7, 2023, during which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Since then, at least 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health of the territory.

Like thousands of gas, Noura and Mohamed had to flee several times and could not obtain the food, the vitamins and the drugs she needed for a healthy pregnancy.

“We were used to walking for long hours and moving constantly from one place to another, in the midst of terrifying random attacks,” said Mohamed.

Seven months after her pregnancy, Noura suffered a serious hemorrhage.

“She was bleeding strongly and we couldn’t even find a vehicle to take her to the hospital. We finally managed to transport her to a garbage truck,” said Mohamed.

“When we arrived, the miscarriage had already started.”

One of their twins was stillborn and the other died a few hours after birth. Mohamed says that there was no incubator for available premature babies.

“Everything disappeared in a minute,” said Noura.

In addition to losing the twins, they also lost their frozen embryos.

The director of the Al-Basma Fertility Center, Dr. Baha Ghalayini, speaks with sadness and disbelief while he explains that he was bombed in early December 2023.

He is unable to provide an exact date or hour and founded this estimate during the last time a staff member saw the operational fertility center.

Dr. Ghalayini says that the most important part of the clinic housed two tanks which contained nearly 4,000 frozen embryos and more than 1,000 samples of sperm and ova.

“The two incubators destroyed – which cost more than $ 10,000 – were filled with liquid nitrogen that preserved the samples,” he said.

They had to be completed regularly and “about two weeks before the bombing, nitrogen began to be low and evaporate”.

The director of the laboratory, Dr. Mohamed Ajjour, who had been moved to Southern Gaza, says that he “arrived at the nitrogen warehouse in Al-Nuseirat, and obtained two tanks”.

But he says that the intensity of the bombings prevented him from delivering them to the clinic, about 12 km: “The center was bombed and nitrogen has become useless.”

Dr. Ghalayini says that the center has stored embryos for patients treated in other clinics as well as their own. “I’m talking about 4,000 frozen embryos. They are not just figures, it is people’s dreams. People who have waited for years, spent painful treatments and pinned their hopes on these tanks that were ultimately destroyed.”

He believes that between 100 and 150 women have lost what could have been their only chance to have children, because many can no longer undergo the procedure. “Some people age, some are patients with cancer, others suffer from chronic diseases. Many have received strong fertility medications that they can receive once. Starting is not easy.”

When they were approached for comments, the Israeli defense forces told the BBC that they would be better able to respond if the “specific time of the strike” was provided.

They added that they “operate according to international law and take precautions to minimize civil damage”.

In March of this year, the international commission independent of the UN investigation into the occupied Palestinian territory made the accusation that Israel “intentionally attacked and destroyed the Basma IVF clinic” intended to prevent births among the Palestinians in Gaza “.

He also alleged that Israel had prevented aid, including the drugs necessary to guarantee pregnancy, childbirth and neonatal care to reach women.

The Commission continued by affirming that the Israeli authorities “partly destroy the reproduction capacity of Palestinians in Gaza as a group … One of the categories of genocidal acts”.

At the time of the report, the permanent mission of Israel to the UN published a statement saying that it “categorically rejects these baseless accusations”.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with anger, calling for the Human Rights Council – who commanded the report – “an anti -Semitic, rotten body supported by the terrorist and not relevant”.

Instead of focusing on war crimes committed by Hamas, he said, he attacked Israel with “false accusations”.

An FDI spokesperson told the Arabic BBC that he “does not deliberately target fertility clinics, and she does not seek to prevent the birth rate of the civilian population of Gaza.

“The assertion that the FDI intentionally strikes such sites is baseless and demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the objective of the TSAhal operations in Gaza.”

Dr. Ghalayini says that all the nine Gaza fertility clinics have been destroyed or are no longer able to operate.

Noura explains that the leash and many others with little chance of having a child. People like Sara Khudari, who started her fertility treatment in 2020. She was preparing for an embryo to be implanted when the war started in October 2023. The procedure never took place. “I watched everything to collapse,” she said.

And Islam Lubbad, the Al-Basma clinic helped to design in 2023, a few months before the breakup of war. But a month after the start of the fighting, she lost her baby, like Noura. “There was no stability. We continued to move. My body was exhausted,” she said, recalling how she made a miscarriage.

Islam had more frozen embryos stored in Al-Basma Fertility Center, but they have now been lost and there are no IVF clinics that take place to try to resume pregnancy.