Palestinian inmate caught trying to smuggle sperm out of prison in Israel

The bottle was found hidden on a Palestinian who stays in a correctional facility outside of the Ramon Prison walls.

A Palestinian detainee at the Ramon Prison in southern Israel was caught by Israeli guards trying to smuggle a bottle of another prisoner's sperm on Tuesday, the Israeli Prisons Service announced.

Newborn Palestinian quadruplets, conceived with smuggled sperm from their father imprisoned in Israel and depicted in the placard, are laid on a bed by their grandmother at their home in Gaza city, on June 13.(AFP)

The bottle was found hidden on a Palestinian who stays in a correctional facility outside of the Ramon Prison walls.

The prisoner who provided the sperm was identified and placed in solitary confinement.

The issue of babies born to prisoners from smuggled sperm is a sensitive Palestinian topic. More than 100 babies are said to have been conceived by semen smuggled out of Israeli prisons. The prisoners' wives impregnate themselves through in vitro fertilization.

Successfully conceiving a baby this way costs at least $10,000, usually significantly more. Palestinian clinics have been known to provide IVF services pro bono if the prisoner is serving a long-term sentence. Fatwas, or Muslim religious rulings issued by Palestinian clergy permit the practice.

Israelis tend to view the children as illegitimate, saying that the sperm cannot survive the journey from prison to clinic unless under special conditions, and that the children are usually the product of another father.

The first Palestinian baby was reportedly conceived and born this way in 2012.