All week long they came, wearily making their way up the winding mountain road that leads to the village of Kayfoun.
They came in cars and vans, on motorbikes or packed into the back of trucks. At first there were hundreds, most of them fleeing flattened homes in Beirut's southern suburbs to seek refuge with friends and relatives in this hamlet perched high in Chouf Mountains.
That soon turned to thousands as Shia Muslims streaming up from ravaged southern Lebanon bypassed Beirut and headed for the relative safety of its Kayfoun's narrow streets.
Unlike the rest of the Chouf, which is predominantly Druze, this is a Shia village where loyalty to Hizbullah comes in the form of a huge poster of its leader Nasrallah in the main square.
By the weekend, Kayfoun's population had swollen from its original 5,000 inhabitants to 40,000, local police told The Irish Times.
The more fortunate ones slept on floors in private homes or at the village's Sweet Hotel, others hunkered down at the local school and mosque. And when all those were full, some refugees sought shelter in derelict or half-constructed buildings on the edges of the village.
"It's a catastrophe," sighed one local police officer who declined to give his name, "We have water for perhaps 20,000 people in the village and surrounding areas. Now there are more than 60,000 in this area. What are we going to do?"
It is a question asked by everyone in Lebanon as each morning brings news of fresh air strikes, more civilian deaths, dwindling supplies and wave after wave of desperate refugees.
Almost two weeks of relentless Israeli air strikes have driven more than 600,000 people from their homes, according to UN estimates.
Of that, half a million have been displaced within the country, a figure expected to increase significantly as thousands continue to flee the southern regions following Israeli military orders that residents evacuate a 20-mile belt south of the Litani river.
Food shortages are beginning to kick in, and prices for essentials like bread and water have risen dramatically. With its airport bombed, seaports under blockade and main roads destroyed, Lebanon, which imports around 90 per cent of its food, has seen its food and medical supplies plummet to dangerously low levels. The World Food Programme estimates current food stocks within the country are enough to last between one and three months.
Israel lifted its sea blockade over the weekend to wave some aid through. However, aid workers face major difficulties in distributing supplies to some of the worst-hit areas, isolated due to the bombardment of roads and bridges.
More than 60 families have set up home in the classrooms, corridors and playground of Kayfoun's New Renaissance School, many of them from villages around Tyre, the southern Lebanese city that has experienced some of the heaviest bombing of the last week. "It took us two full days to get here," says Mohassim, (23), a student nurse. "The worst thing was the terrible sound of the bombs, the sound of everything around us being destroyed. We were very frightened and sometimes it seemed we wouldn't make it at all. Alhumdilillah [ Thanks be to God] we did."
No one, she says, has much money to buy food. "Some people ran so quickly they left with the clothes they were wearing and not much else. There are many here who were poor before this all started. Now they have nothing." Facilities at the school are even more basic than those at similar makeshift shelters in Beirut - there are no gas stoves for cooking, and water, delivered from a nearby river twice a week, regularly runs out.
The water is not suitable for drinking, and several refugees have come down with infections and diarrhoea. One of the school's ten toilets is blocked. Some refugees complain of long days and boredom. Others fidget nervously and wonder aloud about those relatives and friends left behind.
Lying on thin foam mattresses, mothers fan their sleeping babies in the sweltering heat and scold the older children for bickering. Men play cards and argue. An elderly woman lies sleeping in the shade, flies crawling on her face.
"The lack of food and medicine are our biggest problems," Mohassim says. "We're also worried about sanitation and the possibility that disease could spread quickly especially among the children. People are depressed, afraid and angry. The high emotions have spilled over into fighting at times. We can't last for long here."
As we talk, a crowd gathers around us and begins to press in closer.
The atmosphere changes. "We support Hizbullah - before, now and after," one woman shouts aggressively. "We are with them until the end."
A young man dressed in combat trousers and black T-shirt approaches and demands I hand over my notepad. He takes it and tears the pages out. "Come with me," he says.
We go to the front gate where a group of men are already questioning the Palestinian-Swedish journalist I arrived with. Each carries a walkie-talkie in one hand and mobile in the other. A crowd mills around until one of the men uses a loudspeaker to disperse the refugees.
Another man - I am later told he is the local Hizbullah leader - asks to see our ID. The situation begins to make sense.
For more than a week now, rumours have swirled throughout Lebanon that spies are operating in the country.
Local papers have quoted government officials stating dozens have been apprehended in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Last week a British TV crew was questioned after they came under suspicion in the capital.
As the Israeli bombardment continues and frustrations rise, suspicion and paranoia have set in among some Lebanese. That has been matched by increasing anger towards the international community for what some consider a lack of empathy, others a blatant siding with Israel. Several of the Hizbullah men are apologetic. "There are spies working in our country. We need to protect ourselves," says one.
After an hour of questions, during which our mobile phones are examined and IDs photographed, I am handed my notes and we are told to leave.
"We're sorry," says the leader, "but this is a war and we need to be careful."