While many other things were destroyed in the Israeli operations in Gaza, 5,000 embryo samples kept in the only reproductive center were also destroyed. The building of the al-Basma IVF center in Gaza was targeted by Israeli warplanes in December.
When the lids of the liquid nitrogen tanks in which the fetal samples were kept were blown off in the explosion, the super-cold liquid nitrogen dissolved into the atmosphere and the temperature inside destroyed all the fetal samples.
Among them, 4000 samples were unenriched sperm and 1000 samples were unenriched male reproductive material. These embryo samples, stored in liquid nitrogen tanks at the fertility center, were the last ray of hope for hundreds of childless Palestinian couples.
The reproductive center was founded in 1997 by 73-year-old Cambridge-educated Bahauddin Ghalayini. They are extremely sorry for the loss of embryo or egg samples. He says that my heart has been broken into millions of pieces by this tragedy.