By Bassam Masoud and Saleh Salem
DOHA (Reuters) -Najwa Abu Hamada felt no sense of justice when a U.N. Commission of Inquiry cited the destruction of a fertility clinic among actions that it said showed Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
Instead, the commission’s findings revived painful memories in Abu Hamada of the embryos she had stored at the Al-Basma IVF centre and lost when it was hit by Israeli forces in late 2023.
Like other Gazans, Abu Hamada feels helpless and without a voice to protest as Israel presses on with its nearly two-year-old military offensive in Gaza and the death toll keeps rising.
EMBRYOS DESTROYED IN ATTACK ON IVF CENTRE
“The genocide is not only targeting men, children and women, it is also targeting frozen fertility eggs – my only hope,” Abu Hamada said in Qatar, where she now lives.
“Israel came and even carried out genocide which reached even the embryos that belong to me at (the) Al Basma centre. What can compensate me?”
Abu Hamada has already had one child by using fertility procedures in Gaza, and is still wondering is she can have another child at the age of 49.
On Tuesday, she and her husband Eyad Abu Hamada spoke with her doctor Bahaeldeen Ghalayini, an obstetrician and gynecologist who established the Al Basma IVF centre, about the possibility of undergoing further fertility treatments.
“The doctor told us don’t lose hope,” said her husband.
The couple had travelled to Qatar for fertility treatment before the Gaza war began. The loss of her embryos back home in Gaza in 2023 dealt a huge blow to her hopes of having another child.
ISRAELI ENVOY SAYS REPORT IS A ‘LIBELOUS RANT’
Reuters could not independently verify details of her story. But Ghalayini confirmed separately to Reuters that Abu Hamada had embryos that were stored at the Gaza clinic before it was attacked in late 2023.
The U.N. Commission concluded that the destruction of the Al Basma IVF centre was “a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza” – one of five acts or violations that count as genocide under the 1948 convention.
“The Israeli security forces launched a tank shell that directly hit the clinic and caused the explosion of five liquid nitrogen tanks, consequently destroying all the reproductive material that was stored therein for future conception of Palestinians,” it said.
Israel has not confirmed striking the clinic. It has denied carrying out genocide or deliberately targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure during its military operation in Gaza, which it says is intended to eradicate Hamas following the group’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
“In stark contrast to Hamas’ intentional attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm,” the Israel Defence Forces said on Wednesday.
Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said the UN commission of inquiry’s conclusion that Israel has committed genocide was “scandalous” and “fake,” and described its report as a “libelous rant.”
ISRAELI ATTACK DESTROYED 4,000 EMBRYOS
Reuters was first to report on the attack that Ghalayini said destroyed 4,000 embryos plus 1,000 more specimens of sperm and unfertilized eggs.
The commission’s 72-page legal analysis is the strongest U.N. finding to date but the body is independent and does not officially speak for the United Nations. The U.N. has not used the term ‘genocide’ but is under increasing pressure to do so.
Israel has accused Hamas fighters of operating from medical facilities, which Hamas denies.
Along with the destruction the fertility clinic, the commission of inquiry cited as evidence of genocide the scale of the killings in Gaza, aid blockages and forced displacement.
Abu Hamada had a son, Khalil, who was conceived through fertility procedures at a different clinic. He was killed when he was 17, during a flare-up of violence between Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant group in 2022.
“God blessed me with him after 12 years (of infertility) and five (IVF) transplant operations. He is gone after he became a young man and I wanted him to get married and celebrate his wedding, and I lost him,” said Abu Hamada.
“We want everyone to stand by us. The whole world is watching and doing nothing.”
(Additional reporting by Tamar Uriel Beeri, Writing by Michael Georgy, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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