GAZA/BEIRUT: At least 62 Palestinians have been killed and 147 others injured in five massacres committed by Zionists against families in the Gaza Strip during the past 48 hours, Gaza health authorities said Tuesday. Palestinian medics said at least 37 people had been killed in Zionist strikes in several parts of the Gaza Strip overnight and into Tuesday, including 10 people killed in a house in Beit Hanoun and two others in the nearby town of Beit Lahiya.

Four Zionist soldiers were killed in northern Gaza. Later on Tuesday, a Zionist strike killed 11 Palestinians in Rafah, medics said. A strike on a house in the Gaza City suburb of Sabra killed a Hamas leader in the city, Waleed Aweida, and his granddaughter. Three other people including his wife were still under the rubble.

For more than a month, Zionist troops have been laying siege to the northern end of Gaza in a push the military says is aimed at squeezing out Hamas fighters reforming in the area around the town of Jabalia. The Zionist entity has faced growing international pressure over the disastrous humanitarian situation facing civilians who have been largely cut off from aid for weeks.

“We are witnessing alarming cases of malnutrition among both children and adults. We are struggling to provide even one meal

a day for our hospital workers amidst severe food and medical supply shortages,” said Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. “We are losing lives every day due to the lack of specialized care and resources,” he added.

This week, the outgoing US administration is expected to judge whether the Zionist entity has done enough to meet a demand issued last month to get more aid flowing into Gaza. Last week, a committee of global food security experts warned of a strong likelihood that famine was imminent in certain areas of northern Gaza.

As the 30-day deadline imposed by Washington has approached, Zionist authorities have been rushing to meet some of the US demands but it remains unclear whether enough has been done to satisfy US requirements. On Tuesday, the military said it had opened a fifth crossing into Gaza, one of the US demands, which it said would help get food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment to central and southern Gaza. International aid groups said the effort falls short of what would be needed and the Zionist entity’s military operation in northern Gaza has worsened the situation.

More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past year and Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland of wrecked buildings and piles of rubble where more than 2 million Gazans seek shelter as best they can. The Zionist campaign in the north of Gaza, and the evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the area, has fueled accusations from Palestinians that it is clearing the area for use as a buffer zone and potentially for a return of Jewish settlers. On Tuesday, residents said Zionist tanks advanced deeper in Beit Hanoun and besieged four displaced families before ordering them to leave towards Gaza City.

Meanwhile, the Zionist military pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs with airstrikes on Tuesday, mounting one of its heaviest daytime attacks yet on the Hezbollah-controlled area after the defense minister ruled out a ceasefire until Zionist goals were met. Smoke billowed over Beirut as around a dozen strikes hit the southern suburbs from mid-morning.

Rocket fire from Lebanon on Tuesday killed two men in their 40s in the Zionist entity’s north, close to the town of Nahariya, first responders said. People were forced to take shelter as attack drones were launched from Lebanon, the military said. Hezbollah also said it fired missiles at an air base near Tel Aviv. A Zionist strike killed five people in the village of Baalchmay some 15 km southeast of Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Another person was killed in a Zionist strike in Hermel, in northeastern Lebanon, it said.

Beirut residents have largely fled the southern suburbs since the Zionist entity began bombing it in September. Footage of one strike shared on social media showed two missiles slamming into a building of around 10 storeys, demolishing it and sending up clouds of debris. Tuesday’s strikes destroyed 15 buildings in the southern suburbs, security sources said.

The new Zionist defense minister Israel Katz said on Monday there would be no ceasefire in Lebanon until the Zionist entity achieves its goals. Imran Riza, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, said the conflict was imposing an alarming human cost in Lebanon, saying that airstrikes reportedly killed 23 people, including seven children, in a village in Mount Lebanon on Monday. “On the same day, an airstrike in the city of Tyre killed five siblings from the same family, all of whom had special needs,” he said in a statement. – Agencies