MIDDLE EAST: Fatima did not want to leave her tiny village in southern Lebanon. Even when the explosions drew closer and caused the walls of her home to shudder, even when she found Israeli army leaflets outside the front door warning residents to leave immediately, she held firm.
After all, she reasoned, her village had survived much worse during the civil war years. But that was before a missile flattened her parents' home, burying her elderly mother in a pile of rubble. It was time to go.
Numb with grief, she fled north to Beirut with her husband and children, picking their way through back roads and open fields to avoid the bombed bridges and main highways on the usual route.
Home for now is a classroom in a central Beirut school, shared with another family from a neighbouring village.
Hundreds of the city's schools have been hastily converted into makeshift refugee centres for those fleeing the Israeli strikes. More than 25,000 Lebanese have been displaced since the bombings began, according to government figures. Those who can afford it have left the country, others have headed for the mountains north and east of Beirut - but many have flocked to the city centre, unsure of where to go.
Most of the thousands pouring into central Beirut are Shia Muslims fleeing heavy bombardment in its southern suburbs and hamlets further south near the Israeli border. Some have been lucky to find a place in the already-cramped schools, hundreds others are sleeping in the open.
Hamra high school now houses almost 700 refugees, more than one-third of them children. Desks have been pushed against walls to make room for foam mattresses and wool blankets. A cotton sheet hung from the ceiling of one room provides some privacy. Outside on the balcony, someone has plugged in an old TV set to watch the latest on al-Jazeera. Several families lie on thin mattresses in the sun, others light camp stoves to boil water for tea. Somebody passes around a local newspaper, its pages full of gruesome pictures of the weekend's casualties.
"What will we do?" asks Fatima. "Our homes are destroyed, our people dead. We have nothing to go back to even when the bombing stops. We have lost everything because of those Israeli terrorists."
Omar Helwe is one of the young volunteers helping co-ordinate supplies for the refugees. "We hope the bombing is not going to last much longer because hygiene and safety issues will become a major problem here," he says.
"This is a school not a refugee camp. We simply do not have the facilities to cope with the huge number of people who have nowhere else to go."
A few streets away, the designer shops and chic cafes of the affluent Verdun district are shuttered and Lebanese soldiers skulk in doorways. Around the corner, staff at a mobile clinic treat those who have sought refuge in a local primary school. Volunteers there say the building is suitable for 200 people at a push; that morning their headcount reached 1,007.
The overcrowding, the heat and the uncertainty means emotions run high among the refugees. Fights have broken out between families, and children complain of hunger.
"How much longer can we survive with the limited supplies we have? These people are desperate," said one volunteer, her eyes filling with tears.
In the nearby Sanayeh Park, volunteers were hoping to find alternative accommodation for more than 500 displaced Lebanese who had no other choice but to bed down in the open air. "It's not a good place for them, especially the children," said Sarjoun Kantar as he helped distribute bread, cheese and water. "They are highly vulnerable out here in the open, especially as we don't know where the Israelis are going to hit next." Amid the desperation, however, there were flashes of defiance. Many of the refugees come from areas sympathetic to Hizbullah and most did not shy away from showing their allegiance to the militant group.
"Yes, it is difficult for us here," said Hussein Zahweh, from southern Lebanon. "But as long as Hizbullah is winning, we have no problem staying here. Victory to Hizbullah!"
His friend Selim agreed: "No matter how much they attack us and no matter how much they attack Hizbullah, they cannot kill our will and destroy our dignity."