By Abdelaziz Boumzar and Maya Gebeily
SIDON, Lebanon (Reuters) - Families from south Lebanon clogged the highways north on Monday, fleeing an expanding Israeli bombardment for an uncertain future with children crammed onto parents' laps, suitcases tied to car roofs and dark smoke rising behind them.
Countless cars, vans and pick-up trucks were loaded with belongings and filled with people, sometimes several generations to a vehicle, while other families had fled fast, taking only the bare essentials as bombs rained down from above.
"When the strikes happened in the morning on the houses I grabbed all the important papers and we got out. Strikes all around us. It was terrifying," said Abed Afou whose village of Yater was hit heavily in the dawn barrage.
Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah group have been trading fire across the border since the war in Gaza began last year with an attack by Hezbollah's ally Hamas, but Israel has rapidly intensified its military campaign over the past week.
On Monday, as the bombardment escalated to encompass more parts of Lebanon, people received pre-recorded telephone calls on behalf of Israel's military telling them to leave their homes for their own safety.
Afou, who had stayed in Yater since the start of the fighting despite being only about 5 km (3 miles) from the Israeli border, decided to leave as blasts started striking residential houses in the district, he said.
"I had one hand on my son's back telling him not to be afraid," he said. Afou's family with three sons aged 6-13, and several other relatives, were now stuck on the highway as traffic crawled north.
They did not know where they would stay, he said, but just wanted to reach Beirut.
'WE WILL RETURN'
As the traffic passed through Sidon long queues formed. A van crawled by, its back doors hanging open and a family sitting inside, a woman in a red scarf by the door with one foot hanging out and a boy standing in the middle, hanging onto a rail.
By the roadside a group from Lebanon's security forces, wearing blue jeans and black gilets marked 'Police' stood with their guns.
A man leaned across a woman in the passenger seat of a car to shout through the window: "We will be back. God willing we will be back. Tell (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu that we will return."
But another man, who gave only his first name Ahmed, said only God knew if his family could ever go back home. He had pulled up by the roadside, his van filled with more than 10 people, many of them children.
"Strikes. Warplanes. Destruction. No one is left there. Everyone has fled. We took our belongings and left," he said.
Lebanon's health ministry said more than 270 people were killed in the bombardment and an official said it was the country's deadliest single day since the end of the civil war in 1990.
Israel said it had struck about 800 targets connected to Hezbollah and that buildings it hit contained weapons belonging to the group.
Some had witnessed the destruction up close.
"The strength and intensity of the bombing are something we haven't witnessed before in all the previous wars," said Abu Hassan Kahoul, on his way to Beirut with his family after two buildings were levelled near the apartment block where he lives.
"Small children don't know what is happening but there's fear in their eyes," he added.
Even in Beirut there was growing alarm, and parents rushed to pull their children from schools as Israel warned of more strikes. "The situation is not reassuring," said a man called Issa, coming to pick up a young student.