Atmospheric Music.

“Just a few seconds old, but already strong of voice, Muhannad Ziben did not sound best pleased as a midwife, gripping him by the ankle, hoisted him above his mother and snipped the umbilical chord.” Says Jon Donnison.

The umbilical chord? I couldn’t hear it but it was probably a musical accompaniment to Jon Donnison’s flowery prose.  

“He was born in Nablus's al-Arabia hospital in August last year. Within a few hours he looked more comfortable, snoozing in the arms of his mother Dallal. The father though was absent.”

Oh noes! How sad. Why, pray?

“Ammar Ziben is serving 32 life sentences in an Israeli prison for his involvement in bomb attacks in Jerusalem in 1997.”

Not a terrorist, obviously. Just a very naughty boy.

Dallal says she was able to get pregnant using her husband's sperm, which was smuggled out from inside the jail. "Muhannad is a gift from God," Dallal told the BBC at the time. "But my happiness is not complete without my husband here beside me."

 Dallal's case received widespread media attention.

.........probably considerably more than the bombing that killed 16 civilians and injured 178 in 1997.

From Wiki: “In August 1997, Fahad Rimawi, editor of the Jordanian weekly "Almajd," wrote: "We praise and glorify the double heroic act which two Palestinian 'mujahadins' performed in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. These two holy martyrs illuminated the night in Jerusalem...and gave meaning to Arab heroism. We do not hide our happiness upon this act."

Hmm. 

Since then, the BBC has spoken to two fertility doctors in the West Bank who say there are now around 10 Palestinian women who have become pregnant using sperm smuggled out of Israeli jails.

The BBC would. Just the sort of thing the BBC would be interested in. Slightly salacious, a bit of a mystery, and pitiful, with anti-Israeli connotations thrown in for good measure.

"Honestly, I don't know how they do it and I don't want to know how they do it," says Dr Salem Abu Khaizaran, one of the fertility doctors who has been helping the women.

"I don't want to get into the politics. I am doing it for humanitarian reasons only, just to help these women. Everyone gives a lot of attention to the prisoners, but these women really suffer a lot."

Shame!

“Spreading the word

The doctor says the women bring the sperm to his clinic in anything from small bottles to plastic cups.”

Eew.

Read a more serious analysis of this nonsense at BBCWatch.