Amazing Article: Techias Hameisim, Sort of…….

 

A vast demand’ for posthumous sperm retrieval creates new life – and new questions

Since the start of the war, postmortem sperm retrieval was performed on 250 soldiers and security personnel and on 21 civilians. There’s no national policy to decide what happens

The first thought that came to Dr. Hadas Levy when she found out that her fiancé, Capt. (res.) Netanel Silberg, 33, was killed in Gaza on December 18, 2023, was that the news couldn’t be true.

Her next thought was: “I want to have his baby.”

On June 11, 2025, Levy, 35, became the first woman to give birth to a baby whose father had been killed in the war against Hamas through posthumous sperm removal (PSR).

“Until the baby was born, I was still grieving for Netanel,” Levy told The Times of Israel. “And now I can wake up in the morning and feel joy.”

In the days following October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, slaughtering some 1,200 people, and kidnapping 251 to Gaza, embryologists and specialists reported an unprecedented number of requests for postmortem sperm retrieval.

Since then, according to the Health Ministry, postmortem sperm retrieval has been performed on 250 soldiers and security forces personnel, with 193 at the request of a parent. Sperm was also retrieved from 21 civilians, again with 10 of those requests from parents.

An IDF spokesperson told The Times of Israel that when casualty notification officers inform families about a fallen soldier, they also talk to them about the legal possibility of retrieving sperm from the deceased in cases where it is medically feasible to do so.

The officers approach the family as quickly as possible, in a way that does not jeopardize the chances of a successful retrieval, the spokesperson said.

Before October 7, posthumous sperm retrieval was permitted for the parents only with court approval. After the start of the war, the Health Ministry and the Justice Ministry approved a temporary regulation allowing parents to authorize sperm retrieval without the need for court approval. But there is no national policy about what happens next to the sperm.

Because Levy was not yet married to Silberg, she had to petition the family court in Jerusalem in 2024 to use his sperm. At the same time, she asked to be recognized as Silberg’s common-law partner. The court granted both requests. She then continued with in vitro fertilization.

In July, an Eilat court authorized Sharon Eisenkot to use sperm retrieved from her son, IDF soldier Maor Eisenkot, who was killed in Gaza in 2023, to have a grandchild through surrogacy, in the first such decision since the outbreak of the war.

On its website, the Health Ministry states that the issue raises “many complicated questions from various areas such as law, medicine, philosophy, religion, human dignity, the deceased’s dignity, progeny, and family.”

Saving ‘precious time’

Prof. Bella Savitsky, an epidemiologist and public health specialist at Ashkelon Academic College, recently published a study surveying the attitude of 600 Jewish Israeli men in The Israel Journal of Health Policy Research on posthumous sperm retrieval. She is now lobbying the IDF to ask for soldiers’ consent to this procedure when they first join the army, so that the families save the crucial minutes needed to retrieve motile (live) sperm.

She told The Times of Israel that more than 70% of the respondents said the IDF should ask men before their regular enlistment in the army if they want to have posthumous sperm retrieval in case they are killed in battle. That figure rose to 78% regarding reserve soldiers.

Sperm loses its viability within 24 to 36 hours after death, so the procedure must be done as quickly as possible. In a study on laboratory insights into posthumous sperm retrieval in the first three months of the war, researchers at Ichilov Hospital found that the sperm’s viability declines roughly 2% every hour after death.

“We have a very narrow window to perform the procedure,” Savitsky said. “Every moment we wait may deteriorate the genetic material, and we are just wasting very precious time.”

In addition, Savitsky stressed the importance of asking the soldiers themselves how they feel about the procedure.

Her study found that 47% of the men said they would oppose posthumous sperm retrieval use by their parents. More than 30% would oppose a partner doing so.

“It is crucial to ask men these questions while they are still alive,” she wrote in the paper.

Savitsky explained that her professional interest in the subject stemmed from her painful personal experience.

Then, when “soldiers came to our house to tell us the news, Jonathan had already been dead for 48 hours,” she recounted.

At the time, the Health Ministry had not yet removed the need for court approval for parents to request posthumous sperm retrieval, so Savitsky went through that process, losing another 10 hours.

By the time the sperm was extracted by doctors at the sperm bank at Shamir Medical Center, “it had been 70 hours and the sperm was not viable anymore,” she said.

The process made her think, “Why? Why did it take so long? What can I do?”

‘No chance because no one asked’

An IDF spokesperson said that there is no current plan to ask recruits for their consent on posthumous sperm retrieval.

Some European countries, such as France, Germany, and Hungary, prohibit posthumous sperm retrieval even with the prior consent of the deceased. In Australia and the United States, there is no federal law dictating the matter, but prior written consent is needed in most states and counties.

Savitsky said an added benefit to having a database is that it would relieve grieving families from having to make a momentous decision at a time of terrible stress.

“If families don’t understand the situation correctly, they might say yes or no, and their answer cannot be undone after that,” she said.

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When asked if Savitsky believed that her son would have wanted to have posthumous sperm retrieval, she said that based on the answers of young men similar to her son, “he would say that it’s not optimal, but he would understand my situation. He would know that I would be heartbroken and depressed, so he would say yes, because he loved me and knew that I could be a good grandmother to his child.”

The fact that the procedure has been done for 250 fallen soldiers, including Levy’s fiancé, Silberg, is a good thing, Savitsky said. But she pointed out that almost 900 soldiers were killed in the war, “and for those men, we’ll never know what they would have wanted.”

“They never had the chance because nobody asked them,” she said. “They are leaving the world without continuity of themselves. It’s very sad.”

Immediate requests for sperm retrieval post-October 7

Dr. Eran Altman, head of the Rabin Medical Center sperm bank and fertility clinic, told The Times of Israel that since October 7, the clinic has dealt with “a vast demand” for posthumous sperm retrieval.

“I started getting lots of telephone calls on my cell phone immediately after October 7 asking me if I could help a friend whose friend died,” Altman said.

The Health Ministry soon stepped in to help with the procedure, he said. The ministry updated its website with new information. It also coordinated the four main sperm banks in central Israel, Ichilov Medical Center, Rabin Medical Center, Sheba Medical Center and Shamir Medical Center.

“The army was then able to bring the soldiers very quickly, let’s say, several hours after their death,” Altman said.

“It’s an issue, because if you wait too much, the sperm will die,” he said.

The medical procedure

Altman explained that the sperm retrieval process on fallen soldiers is similar to one done on male patients who don’t have semen when they ejaculate.

“It is a normal and quite common procedure done through the testicles,” Altman said. “But for cadavers, of course, it is much less common.”

“We had a lot of wars in Israel, but we never had a demand for this procedure, not even close,” he said.

In most cases, medical professionals use a needle to draw out small samples of fluid that contain sperm. They then check the sperm under a microscope to determine if any are still motile. If so, the sample can be frozen and preserved for years.

Findings from the Ichilov Hospital research showed that there is an average 39% drop in sperm vitality after freezing and thawing. There is currently no research to assess molecular damage.

In Netanel Silberg’s case, Altman said, there were nine samples with sperm, “and if you don’t succeed in those nine samples, then you don’t have more. There was some stress during that procedure, but we did it.”

Levy said that afterwards, the doctors told her that “at first, they saw that everything was dead, and nothing was moving, but they did not give up.”

“I was very, very happy, but for some reason, I was convinced it was going to happen for me,” she said. “I knew I was going to have a child from Netanel.”

Levy works as a pediatrician — she is now on maternity leave — and then she delivered the baby at the hospital in June.

“Hadas is a colleague and a friend,” said Dr. Yishai Sompolinsky, of Hadassah Mt. Scopus Medical Center’s maternal fetal medicine department. “It’s very exciting and moving to be involved in such delivery.”

He said that his brother-in-law (res.) Eliav Amram Abitbol, 36, was also killed during the war while fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon, so “for me, the birth was somewhat therapeutic, I would say, and it was an honor to be part of the special delivery.”

Giving birth to Silberg’s son, Levy said, was “not letting the enemy cut a branch in our family tree. They tried to extinguish it, but I did not let them.”