A Palestinian man who spent 15 years in an Israeli prison recently explained how he was able to father four kids during that time, despite not being able to be intimate with his wife.

Rafat Al-Qarawi was arrested in 2006 for terror activity during the Second Intifada against Israel and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. During that time, he allegedly fathered four children, and in a recent interview with Palestinian Media Watch, he revealed just how he managed to pull that off, despite never being intimate with his wife. Al-Qarawi claimed that he smuggled his sperm out of prison in potato chip bags which were then picked up by his wife and taken straight to an infertility clinic for insemination. His remarks raised some eyebrows in the medical community, as human sperm is known to only last a few seconds, minutes at most, outside the human body.

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“We smuggled out sperm through the canteen,” Al-Qarawi said. “The Palestinian prisoner gives his family five items in a bag. It’s like going to a supermarket and you want to give your family something, a gift, candies, cookies, juice, honey, whatever you want.”

“We would emit the sample seconds before they would call our names and put it in bags, wrap them in a certain way and mark them with the sperm inside it, mark it, and tie it with strings the way we had told the family during the previous visit,” the man added.

The chips or cookie bags containing the seminal fluid were allegedly resealed, making it impossible for the guards to notice that they had been tampered with.

“When you go out to the visit the bag is with you. No one touches it other than the prisoner. The one who comes to receive the sample is your mother or your wife,” the former prisoner said. “Of course, everyone had their name written on their bag. The family goes out from the prison with the bag and goes to the Razan Medical Center for insemination.”

 

According to Palestinian Media Watch, over 100 children have been fathered this way, and the method is also featured in the movie “Amara”, where the protagonist is told that she had been conceived using her imprisoned father’s smuggled sperm, only to find out that he is actually infertile.

The plot of “Amara” is actually tied to real-world problems. Apparently, fatwas regarding this controversial smuggling method have been issued, which specify that witnesses must attest to the origin of the sperm to make sure that it’s actually the father’s. Otherwise, the woman becoming pregnant could be in trouble.