The barbaric October 7 Hamas assault on Israel killed 1,300 people, including babies, their mothers and fathers. Many of the dead also included young men –both soldiers and civilians – in the Palestinian militants’ onslaught. Now family members of those young soldiers and in some cases civilians too, have been rushing to embryologists and IVF specialists in order to perform posthumous sperm retrieval (PSR).
According to a report by an Israeli English daily, several embryologists and IVF specialists have reported being contacted by family members of the Hamas attack victims seeking PSR procedure on their loved ones.
The family members want their loved one’s sperms to be frozen in hopes that they can be used to conceive a child in future so that their legacy continues.
The PSR procedure is performed within 24 hours of death. According to the Israel rules, it can be done after a family court order if the person was unmarried. In case of married man, PSR can be performed on the request of a wife after necessary paperwork.
The sperm retrieval procedure is usually performed on healthy men in order to preserve their sperms to help them conceive a child with their female partner in future.
Sperm can also be extracted from ill men who want to freeze their seeds before undergoing surgeries or other medical treatment that can affect their fertility. However, performing PSR procedure on dead could be challenging as well as emotionally draining for medical experts.
On October 7, more than 1,500 Hamas militants invaded at least 20 Israeli towns near the Gaza border and went door to door to killed civilians. In response to the attack, Israel declared a war against Hamas and vowed to wipe out every member of the Palestinian outfit from Earth.
More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the retaliatory air strikes by the Israeli fighter jets and the country is now preparing for a full blown ground assault in the Gaza strip to destroy the complex network of tunnels and bunkers being used by Hamas.