The fortunate found places with their relatives or in hotels. Those less so crammed into makeshift shelters, with Lebanese officials saying that at least 27,000 people had been given accommodation in 252 schools across the country.
At the Zahia Kaddoura School, in Beirut’s Hamra district, Hezbollah officials piled mattresses onto classroom floors and shouted instructions to families spilling out of cars and arriving on the back of motorcycles.
Some carried small suitcases with them, while others clutched babies and, in the case of one young woman, a kitten.
All told similar stories of what they had left behind.
One family of four said 14 people had been killed by Israeli missile strikes in the village of Chaqra, near Bint Jbeil, a predominantly Shia border town that was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting during Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2006.
Jaffar, who fled with his wife, 13-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter, said two shells struck the village, home to roughly 6,000 people, on Monday morning. One largely destroyed an empty mosque, he said, while the second flattened a house in the village, killing nine members of the same family.
A further five people were killed in strikes on the outskirts to the village, which is famed for its ruined crusader castle.
Despite the attacks, Jaffar initially decided to remain at home despite the dangers, but gradually he became aware that almost everyone in the village was leaving and that it would be foolhardy to stay.