Israeli bombings in Gaza kill dozens as efforts persist to get aid to millions

Israel on Tuesday bombed areas of southern Gaza where it had told Palestinians to flee ahead of an expected invasion, killing dozens of people.
Meanwhile, mediators struggled to break a deadlock over delivering aid to millions of increasingly desperate civilians in the territory, which has been besieged and under assault by Israel since a brutal attack by Hamas militants.
Flaring violence along Israel’s border with Lebanon also led to concerns over a widening regional conflict that diplomats were working to prevent.
In Gaza, people wounded in the airstrikes were rushed to the hospital after heavy attacks outside the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.
Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official and former health minister, reported 27 people were killed in Rafah and 30 in Khan Younis.
An Associated Press reporter saw around 50 bodies brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
Family members came to claim the bodies, wrapped in white bedsheets, some soaked in blood.
An airstrike in Deir al Balah reduced a house to rubble, killing nine members of the family living there.
Three members of another family that had evacuated from Gaza City were killed in a neighboring home. The dead included one man and 11 women and children. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike. The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers.