Amid Israel’s war in Gaza, a growing number of parents are seeking to extract and freeze sperm from the bodies of their sons who were killed during the ongoing conflict, according to a BBC report.
More than 400 Israelis have been killed since Hamas’ massive attack on October 7 and Israel’s brutal retaliation.
According to the Israeli Health Ministry, sperm was obtained from 170 of these men – both civilians and soldiers. This represents a 15-fold increase compared to previous years.
This procedure involves making a small incision in the testicle and taking a piece of tissue from which live sperm cells can be extracted and frozen. Successful retrieval is more likely to occur within 24 hours of death but sperm cells can survive in the body of the deceased for up to 72 hours.
Some rules of procedure have been relaxed to make the process easier for grieving families, but families are still frustrated by lengthy legal processes.
In October, the Israeli Ministry of Health removed the mandatory court order request for parents to use the sperm extraction procedure. Although freezing sperm has become easier, widows or parents who want to use it to conceive a child must prove to the court that the deceased person wanted to have children.
Parents say the whole process can take several years, and the long wait adds to their suffering.
The first Israeli couple to preserve and use their deceased son’s sperm did so in 2002, after their son, a soldier, was shot by a Palestinian sniper in the Gaza Strip. Their granddaughter is now 10.
While experts believe the process “makes a lot of sense” for grieving families, they also say “the current rules have created a conflict in the case of single men” as they have to prove their desire for a child in court for the process to be implemented.
Since single men have no clear record of consent, their families, already grappling with grief in a “very difficult situation”, can only freeze sperm but cannot use it for fertilisation.
Currently, Israeli lawmakers are attempting to draft a bill to create clearer and more comprehensive rules for this process, given the high number of deaths in the ongoing war in Gaza.
