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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