Iris Haim, the mother of Yotam Haim, an Israeli hostage mistakenly killed by IDF troops after escaping Hamas captivity in Gaza, said that she has a sense of “hope and renewal” from an April 10 decision by the Beersheba family court to allow the family to use his sperm to conceive a child via a surrogate.

“I’m proud of the State of Israel for taking this important step forward,” Haim told The Times of Israel.

This is the second case of a parent being allowed to use their child’s sperm to have a grandchild through surrogacy.

Last 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. That was the first such decision since the outbreak of the war.

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

While only two families have been granted permission to proceed with conception, postmortem sperm retrieval has been performed on 253 soldiers and security forces personnel as of April 1. Of those, 82 percent were at the request of a parent, according to Prof. Bella Savitsky, an epidemiologist and public health specialist at Ashkelon Academic College, who has studied the issue.

She said that sperm was also retrieved from 21 civilians, with almost half of those requests coming from parents.

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.

“October 7, 2023, changed our country’s perspective,” Haim said. “There’s been so much death, so many young people’s lives who have been robbed.”

The ruling has “opened new doors for us,” she said. “Creating new life is a way to deal with events that would otherwise be impossible to bear.”

Creating new life is a way to deal with events that would otherwise be impossible to bear

Creating new life is a way to deal with events that would otherwise be impossible to bear

While parents are now allowed to ask for posthumous sperm retrieval without court approval, there is no national policy about what is done with the sperm.

Currently, parents who want to use their son’s sperm must prove to the court that it was his express wish to have children.

In Yotam’s case, Haim said, “We proved that he wanted children even if he died.”

She said that Yotam used to say that he wanted red-haired children because “red-headed people might become extinct.”

According to the written decision by Judge Ariel Maman, the Haim family recounted a series of explicit statements made by Yotam, expressing not only his desire to have children, but his desire that — even if he were to die — his sperm be used to ensure his continuity.

Maman noted that there is no clear legislation about such a case and said he was forced to rule based on precedent and his own judgment.

Yotam was 28 when rampaging Hamas terrorists abducted him from Kibbutz Kfar Azza on October 7, 2023. On December 15 of that year, he was mistakenly killed by Israeli troops in Gaza as he tried to reach freedom. The soldiers mistook him and two other hostages as a threat in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.

Yotam’s parents, Iris and Raviv, immediately reacted publicly, saying that they bore no anger toward the military for his death and meeting with the young soldiers involved in the incident so that they could tell them it was not their fault.

“Yotam went free. He left Hamas captivity,” said Iris Haim at the time. “Even if he didn’t make it to Israel alive, he was freed, and therefore he beat Hamas. And this was also important for me to tell the soldiers.”

‘Not every family can prove their son wanted a child’

Haim said that the State Attorney’s Office last May approved of the Haim family’s request on principle.

“Most times, the attorney general’s answer is ‘no,'” Haim said.

The court ruling took “only” 15 months, she said. “Sometimes these cases could take three to five years.”

However, Haim pointed out that the court’s speed might have been due to the fact that her family was able to prove Yotam’s expressed wish.

“But this is a problem, because not every family can prove that their son wanted a child after his death,” she said.

“If a soldier dies at 18, he might not have had time to talk about having children when he was a child himself,” Haim said.

Savitsky said she has been trying to lobby the IDF to ask for soldiers’ consent to this procedure when they first join the army.

“Nothing has changed since my study was published,” she said.

A Defense Ministry spokesperson said the ministry “is in favor of a general regulation of the issue of continuity and the use of the sperm of a deceased person, one that would apply to all citizens.”

According to IDF policy, 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 so that they can save the crucial minutes needed to retrieve motile (live) sperm.

Sperm loses its viability within 24 to 36 hours after death, so the procedure must be done as quickly as possible.

“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.”

She spoke from personal experience. After her son, Jonathan Savitsky, 21, was killed on October 7 while defending the Kissufim army post near the Gaza border, it took 48 hours to identify his body.

It took another 10 hours for her to receive court approval, since that was still required by the state at the time. When Jonathan’s sperm was extracted by doctors at the sperm bank at Shamir Medical Center, 70 hours had gone by, and the sperm was not viable anymore.

It is crucial to ask men these questions while they are still alive

It is crucial to ask men these questions while they are still alive

In her study, published in July, 2025, Savitsky found that more than 70% of 600 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.

Savitsky also stressed the importance of asking the soldiers themselves how they feel about the procedure.

Her study also 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.

Haim said that although it is important to honor the deceased person’s wishes, she feels it is more important to give permission to parents “for the sake of the living.”

Since her family has received a positive court ruling, “we have begun the process of deciding what we’ll do.”

“It isn’t like raising a kitten,” said Haim, who likes cats. “Even that isn’t easy.”

We have begun the process of deciding what we’ll do. It isn’t like raising a kitten

We have begun the process of deciding what we’ll do. It isn’t like raising a kitten

She said several women have already approached her, saying that they would like to be a surrogate mother and raise Yotam’s child.

Haim pointed out that there is an increase in the number of women without partners looking to have children on their own.

“But this is not an anonymous sperm donation,” she said. “This child will have a father who is a real person, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and a supportive family.”

Haim recounted speaking to a man whose son, a soldier, was killed 20 years ago.

“He told me that if there had been that technology back then, he would have done the same thing.”

Haim said that the child will also inherit Yotam’s spiritual legacy.

“Hamas and Hitler wanted to destroy us,” said Haim, whose mother, Bella, is a Holocaust survivor. “Technology can help us create new life. This is looking at what happened and choosing life.”

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