Report: Israeli soldiers' fertility damaged by injuries caused in Gaza

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth revealed yesterday that a large number of Israeli occupation soldiers who were wounded in the Gaza Strip have sustained injuries that threaten their fertility.

The paper said that more than two months into the war, the Israeli health system is dealing with a particularly high rate of urinary tract infections among wounded soldiers, explaining that the importance of these kind of injuries, which include the urinary system, tubes and reproductive system is that they could potentially cause “future damage to sexual function, masculinity and preservation of fertility.”

According to the paper, although there are more serious injuries than those related to the urinary tract, the latter “bothers soldiers more than injuries that may endanger their lives.”

The paper pointed out that at some point, the Assuta Hospital in Ashdod had performed a “quick operation” to preserve a soldier’s reproductive parts  after he suffered a serious urinary tract injury, for fear that it would lead to his “inability to produce sperm in the future.”

The paper quoted the head of the urology department at Assuta Hospital, Orit Raz, as saying that “nearly 80% of the injured [soldiers] who arrive [for treatment] require urinary tract intervention.”

She explained that “a urethral injury is a lifelong disability, and may cause lifelong damage,” indicating that even injuries that appear minor as a result of war “are considered serious, both functionally and psychologically, afterward.”

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