The noose is tightening around southern Lebanon. As the Israeli military steps up its ground operations—losing nine soldiers earlier today—and intensifying its bombing campaign against Hizbullah targets, small towns are being cut off from the rest of the country, and civilians, like Gaith, are getting caught in the cross-fire. So are other noncombatants on the scene: two ambulances from the Red Cross were bombed on Sunday and four United Nations peacekeepers were killed in a missile attack on their base yesterday. Gaith’s house was hit Sunday, but she and her father, the survivors of the attack, were pinned down by heavy bombardment for another 24 hours. A U.N. team eventually pulled them out yesterday and brought them to the Jebel Amel hospital in Tyre, roughly 12 miles from the border, where she told her story to NEWSWEEK.

Shortly after being dropped off, Gaith, who only received light injuries in the attack, stared at a hospital floor in a daze. In a nearby room her father had his head swathed in bandages with burns on his neck and left leg. No one had mustered up the courage to tell him his wife and daughter were dead. “This isn’t a war,” says Dr. Ahmad Mroue, hospital director. “They’re just killing civilians.” More than 100 civilians killed in attacks in and around Tyre were buried in a mass grave last week. And Lebanese military officials, wary of the impact of the mounting death toll on the local populace, have now ordered the doctors at the morgue to stop releasing information.

The first stop for many of the civilians fleeing the violence in the far south is Tyre, a coastal town that attracts hundreds of visitors this time of year with its wide stretch of sandy beach. Just how much the fortunes of this resort town have changed was apparent today: Israeli bombs knocked down several buildings, including one housing a suspected Hizbullah office, in the city center in a cloud of smoke and dust. The building was reportedly empty, and no deaths were reported in the blast, but several people were injured. Previous bombs had already hammered buildings and roads in the city. Glass is strewn across the street in many spots and metal store shutters are caved in from concussive blasts. One massive bomb crater lies at the northern entrance of the city with a white minibus flipped on its roof nearby.

Many from the south simply try to transit through Tyre on their way to Beirut. The trip from the capital is normally a pleasant 90-minute seaside drive. Now the only safe route is a tortuous three-hour journey through the Shouf mountains, capped off with a nerve-wracking 45-minute drive past bomb craters and burned-out cars on the coastal road. Smashed electrical poles leaning at precarious angles across the highway and multistory buildings pancaked into rubble are the first signs of the Tyre city limits. Many of the displaced and desperate are willing to take their chances on this road but are still stuck in the city: taxi drivers are charging up to $400 per person to get to Beirut, a fortune for many of the poor in south Lebanon.

Inevitably, the city is feeling the effects of the sudden influx. Gas and food are in short supply, and rotting garbage has piled up on street corners. Most residents and new arrivals are lying low. The center of the city, normally bustling at midday, is a ghost town. Amid so much confusion, many residents are fearful and anxious. Drones and planes buzz constantly overhead, heightening fears that a bomb could come at any time. A white cloud of smoke seems to hang over the southern suburbs, a regular target, around the clock. When the city residents brave the roads they only drive at top speed, and a handful of cars smashed up in accidents have been abandoned on the roads in and around the city. Occasionally, there’s a loud bang in the sky and Israeli pamphlets warning residents to evacuate float on the breeze like a flock of birds. Hassan Ibrahim, a 52-year old math teacher with deep blue eyes, refuses to go. “I prefer to die here than to flee,” he says, while his wife, wearing a brown and red scarf, nods in agreement. “If all people leave this area we fear the Israelis will come here and make settlements.”