As Israel’s strikes rained down, tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes in search of safety

• Middle East crisis – latest news updates

Hassan waited until the last minute to flee. As Israeli warplanes thundered overhead and bombs began to fall on the forests surrounding his home town of Deir al-Zahrani, south Lebanon, on Monday morning, he told himself he still had some time. For almost a year the town, 12 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border, had been mostly spared from the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that had engulfed much of south Lebanon.

The bombs grew closer. His neighbours began to get calls from unknown numbers with a recorded message, the voice speaking classical Arabic with a strange accent: “If you are in a building where there are Hezbollah weapons, distance yourself from the village.” Hassan had no idea if the homes around him had weapons in them. Houses in the village began to get hit.