In a western Raqqa neighborhood where ISIS had recently been routed, Fawza Hamedi lay on a mattress on the floor of her sister’s house, wincing in pain. She had tried to get out of Raqqa weeks ago. But a woman ahead of her stepped on a mine and died instantly. Shrapnel punctured Ms. Hamedi’s back and legs, an ISIS sniper shot at her, and then ISIS fighters dragged her away to a makeshift jail. Land mine victims are hastily buried there, she said. The smell is still in her nose.

Image Fawza Hamedi at her sister’s house in western Raqqa. When she tried to flee the city, she was wounded by a land mine, then caught by ISIS and jailed. Credit Somini Sengupta/The New York Times

Two women appeared in the house to tell their stories. One said ISIS had beheaded her husband for helping a Christian family escape. Another showed me her swollen hand. An ISIS man had cracked her wrist with the back of his gun, breaking her bones. Her crime was to be seen in the market without full face cover.

Outside, a young man said his father had been beheaded for plotting to join an anti-ISIS militia. He knew the man who did it. “Why don’t you kill him?” a neighbor prodded.

“Let him leave the city and I will,” he said. “I will slaughter him.”

The neighborhood was largely deserted. A primary school had been converted into a military base by the main United States allies fighting ISIS, the Kurdish and Arab militias known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F.

At midday, temperatures soared past 104 degrees Fahrenheit. You could hear the roar of a fighter jet circling over the city center, followed by a thud, then a plume of white smoke rising and spreading into a cloudless blue sky.

The American airstrikes pose a new danger to civilians, killing an estimated 800 people since the United States-led coalition began its assault on the city in June, according to the Syrian Observatory, an independent group, and more than 150 in August alone, according to the United Nations.

Those who manage to get out often have a haunted, crazed look in their eyes. Memories taunt them, both good and bad.