U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has just returned from a trip to Lebanon and Syria, bringing CNN’s Becky Anderson first-hand accounts from the people forced to flee for their lives in the face of Israeli bombardment.

The U.N. says a quarter million people have fled Israeli attacks in Lebanon over the past two weeks for the relative safety of Syria. Most of them are Syrians who escaped their country’s civil war. VOA's Heather Murdock has more from Istanbul with Yan Boechat and Diego Baravelli in Hasakah,