Israeli warplanes struck a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza on Wednesday, April 2nd 2025, killing 22 Palestinians including 16 children, women, and elderly civilians who were burnt to death. The UNRWA clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp had been serving as a shelter for more than 2,000 displaced Palestinians when it was hit, as children played football and mothers cooked using firewood in what had become their temporary sanctuary.
The Israeli attack on the UNRWA clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp has left the victims unrecognisable. According to resistance sources: “The martyrs are unrecognisable. People are writing down the colour of the clothes the martyrs were wearing for their relatives to try to identify them.”
Among the most harrowing reports emerging from the site was that of a three-month-old infant who was beheaded in the strike. Quds News Network quoted the surviving mother: “Three months ago, I gave birth to a girl, and today my newborn girl is without a head after the occupation bombed her.”
The Israeli attack on the UNRWA clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp occurred amid a wider escalation across the Gaza Strip, with the Palestinian Ministry of Health reporting that 57 Palestinians have been killed since dawn on Wednesday.
Beyond the Jabalia clinic massacre, Israeli airstrikes hit the Abdul Bari home in Khan Younis, killing 13 civilians, while the bombing of farmers in Al-Salam, south of Khan Younis, claimed eight more lives. Two police officers were reported killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a Palestinian police unit in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
Expanding the “security zone”: A euphemism for ethnic cleansing?
This latest surge in violence follows mass evacuation orders for Rafah, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun from the Israeli occupation forces, which seek to “expand and add” to Israel’s self-declared “security zones.” Israeli media sources report that the army has completed the siege of Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, with several Palestinians reportedly kidnapped.
According to resistance sources, over 100 airstrikes were carried out across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night alone, resulting in more than 70 fatalities by Wednesday morning. The Israeli occupation forces’ goal appears to be besieging Rafah after repeated failed attempts. Their strategy reportedly involves establishing the “Morag Axis” to sever Khan Younis from Rafah, while simultaneously controlling the Philadelphia Axis on the Palestinian-Egyptian border.
The resistance claims this escalation serves as a form of “military pressure” on Hamas, despite the group’s public expressions of willingness regarding ceasefire agreements. Meanwhile, Israel reportedly seeks to expand its operations in the northern Gaza Strip in the future.
It is worth noting that the Israeli military appears no closer to achieving its stated aim of “eliminating Hamas” than it was at the outset of the conflict in October 2023. Instead, the goalposts have shifted repeatedly as the civilian death toll has mounted—a pattern that has become depressingly familiar to close observers of the conflict.
Government condemns Israeli airstrike on the UNRWA clinic in Jabalia refugee camp
The Government Media Office in Gaza issued a strongly worded statement condemning what it called “yet another war crime added to the Israeli occupation’s long record of crimes against humanity.” The statement highlighted that the number of displacement and shelter centres targeted by the Israeli occupation has now reached 228, “in blatant violation of all international conventions that guarantee the protection of civilians during conflicts.”
“We strongly condemn the continued genocide by the ‘israeli’ occupation against civilians and displaced persons,” the statement read. “We denounce this barbaric aggression that deliberately targets medical facilities and humanitarian shelters. (sic)”
The statement warned against Israel’s plans “to impose new facts on the ground through military control, the expansion of buffer zones, and the forced displacement of our Palestinian people through relentless bombing, killing, and extermination.”
It also assigned blame beyond Israel: “We hold the ‘israeli’ occupation, the United States administration, and participating countries in the genocide—including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France—fully responsible for the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing. (sic)”
Aid workers under fire: A devastating toll
The attack comes amid an unprecedented crisis for humanitarian operations in Gaza. UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini confirmed the deaths of two additional UNRWA colleagues and eight Palestinian Red Crescent aid workers and first responders.
“This brings the death toll of aid workers killed to 408 among them more than 280 UNRWA staff since the war began 1.5 years ago,” Mr Lazzarini wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“These were humanitarian workers. Whether on the front line, or in their homes with their families, civilians must be protected at all time,” he added. “Targeting or endangering emergency responders, journalists or humanitarian workers is a flagrant & severe disregard of international law. In Gaza, these killings have become routine. This cannot become the new norm. There must be accountability. International humanitarian law applies to all, without exception.”
A day earlier, Mr Lazzarini had described the plight of Gaza’s civilians in stark terms: “People are treated like pinballs with constant military orders playing with their fate and lives. The Israeli Authorities issued today more forced displacement orders in Rafah, impacting over 140,000 people. This is causing panic, anxiety and uncertainty on the first day of Eid, a time to be with family and loved ones.”
“Where are people supposed to move?” he continued. “Unlike in other conflicts, where populations can find safety, Gaza is being bombarded all across. It is sealed off like a cage with borders shut and basics not allowed in. Two million people, half of them children, live there. How is this allowed, at the world’s watch, with no checks and balances. One of the darkest times for our common humanity we vowed would not happen again. It is time to put an end to this hell on earth, starting with a resumption of the ceasefire.”
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also condemned the attack on the UNRWA clinic, emphasising that healthcare workers are not targets and calling for a restoration of the ceasefire.
Palestinian resistance condemns Israeli attack on UNRWA clinic in Jabalia
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a left-wing Palestinian resistance group, issued a scathing statement condemning not only Israel but also what it describes as international complicity and Arab inaction.
“Gaza’s children are burning under American missiles, and the international community is complicit in the crime amid disgraceful Arab abandonment,” the statement began.
The PFLP asserted that the Israeli attacks targeting the UNRWA clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp “are systematic acts of genocide supported by the U.S. administration and condoned by the international community, while the Arab world shirks its national responsibilities at a critical historical moment. (sic)”
“The U.S. administration, through its funding and unconditional support, is the primary partner in these crimes,” the statement continued. “It continues to supply the occupation with bombs that burn children and provides it with political cover to carry out its extermination unchecked. As for the international community, which boasts of defending human rights, it has now revealed its true face—as a partner in the crime. (sic)”
The PFLP reserved particular criticism for Arab states: “Even more dangerous is the shameful Arab stance. While Gaza is drowning in bombs, Arab capitals remain silent, despite having wealth, weapons, and influence. How can this impotence continue while entire cities are being wiped out? What greater betrayal is there than seeing an Arab people being slaughtered, only to be met with empty statements?”
The group called for immediate action: “Arab peoples must immediately take to the streets, public squares, and in front of U.S. and zionist embassies. Inaction is betrayal; silence is complicity in the massacres. (sic)”
“The blood of the children of Rafah, Jabalia, and Khan Younis will remain a stain of shame on the foreheads of the conspirators, and those who fail to act today will not escape the judgment of history,” the PFLP emphasised.
A grim milestone: More than 50,000 dead
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 24 Palestinians were killed and 55 injured in the 24 hours leading up to their April 2nd report. The ministry noted that “a number of victims remain under the rubble and on the roads, unable to be reached by ambulance and civil defence crews.”
Since Israel broke the January 2025 ceasefire on March 18th 2025, 1,066 Palestinians have been killed and 2,597 injured. In the broader context of the conflict, the ministry reports that 50,423 Palestinians have been killed and 114,638 injured since October 7th 2023.
These figures, which have been acknowledged as credible by international organisations including the United Nations, represent one of the most devastating conflicts of the 21st century. Yet they appear insufficient to prompt meaningful international intervention or pressure for a lasting ceasefire.
As one witnesses the numbing repetition of atrocities—each seeming to exceed the last in brutality—a troubling question emerges: at what point does the international community’s failure to intervene become complicity? The citizens of Gaza, penned in by land, sea and air with nowhere to flee, might reasonably wonder if there is any red line Israel could cross that would finally trigger a meaningful response from those powers that claim to champion human rights.
For now, the bombs continue to fall, the death toll rises, and the world watches—or, perhaps more accurately, looks away.
East Post is an independent geopolitical analysis portal covering South Asia and global power dynamics for international audiences. Views expressed are analytical and do not constitute endorsement of any state or non-state actor.
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