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ATHENS—Greece was paralyzed by a massive two-day strike Wednesday as groups ranging from civil servants to pharmacists and bakers walked off the job ahead of a key parliamentary vote Thursday on new austerity measures. Across the country, public services were frozen, with central and local government offices closed, schools and courts shut, and hospitals operating at bare minimum staff levels. A couple walks by pilling garbage during the second week of a strike by municipality workers and garbage collectors in Athens on Wednesday. Transport services were disrupted as ferry operations were suspended by a dockworkers' strike, while national rail services ground to a halt, and Greece's two major airlines—Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines canceled dozens of flights owing to a 12-hour walkout by air traffic controllers. Tens of thousands of Greek retailers and small businesses joined in, shutting their shops in protest over recent tax hikes and government cuts that have pushed the country deep into recession and led to a dramatic rise in the number of businesses declaring bankruptcies. The 48-hour strike, called by private-sector umbrella union GSEE and its public-sector counterpart ADEDY, is the second time this year that the two unions have called a two-day walkout over government austerity measures. It follows weeks of almost daily strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins, as well as a two-week-long protest by municipal workers that has left uncollected garbage piling up on the streets of Athens and other cities. "We have reached the limits of our endurance and, what is worse, is that there is no ray of hope," said Stathis Anestis, spokesman for GSEE. "We want to send a message that these austerity policies have been a catastrophe for Greece." Under pressure from its international creditors, Greece's government this month submitted legislation that would further cut public-sector jobs and wages, slash pensions for high-income earners, curtail collective-bargaining rights for workers and enact a new levies on taxpayers, among other things. On Thursday, Parliament will vote on the bill just days before a Sunday summit of European leaders that is expected to produce a comprehensive solution to the bloc's debt crisis, and which will also decide whether to release badly needed aid for Greece. At stake is an €8 billion ($11.0 billion) tranche of aid from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund that Greece needs in the next few weeks. The government has said that without the funding, it will run out of money by mid-November.