Two girls chant slogans as one holds an image of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A member of Hezbollah stands guard next to a destroyed building in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Lebanese army bulldozers reconstruct part of a destroyed bridge that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Qasmiyeh near Tyre city, south Lebanon, to facilitate the return of displaced people to their villages following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Displaced people returning to their villages following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, cross the destroyed Qasmiyeh bridge near Tyre city, south Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A displaced woman holding her dog sits in her tent in Beirut, Lebanon, awaiting an official order from Hezbollah to return to her home in south Lebanon following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Two girls chant slogans as one holds an image of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
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A member of Hezbollah stands guard next to a destroyed building in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
KH
Lebanese army bulldozers reconstruct part of a destroyed bridge that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Qasmiyeh near Tyre city, south Lebanon, to facilitate the return of displaced people to their villages following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
HM
Displaced people returning to their villages following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, cross the destroyed Qasmiyeh bridge near Tyre city, south Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
HM
A displaced woman holding her dog sits in her tent in Beirut, Lebanon, awaiting an official order from Hezbollah to return to her home in south Lebanon following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
BEIRUT (AP) — A fragile calm settled over parts of Lebanon on Friday as a 10-day ceasefire brokered by the United States took hold between Israel and Hezbollah, prompting thousands of displaced families to begin the journey home — even as uncertainty, destruction and Israeli warnings against going back to parts of southern Lebanon clouded their return.
By early morning, cars were backed up for kilometers on the route leading south to the damaged Qasmiyeh bridge over the Litani River, a key crossing linking the southern coastal city of Tyre to the north. Vehicles piled high with mattresses, suitcases and salvaged belongings crept forward through a single reopened lane, hastily repaired after an Israeli airstrike just a day earlier.
Drivers heading back to their villages along coastal highways cheered each other, flashed victory signs and exchanged blessings.
The latest displaced more than a million people. Despite warnings from Lebanese officials that they should not immediately attempt to return to their homes, many began moving toward southern Lebanon in the hours after the ceasefire was declared. The truce appeared to be largely holding overnight.
In southern villages like Jibsheet, a trickle of residents returned to flattened apartment blocks and streets littered with chunks of concrete, twisted aluminum shutters and dangling electrical wires.
“I feel free being back,†said Zainab Fahas, 23. “But look they destroyed everything — the square, the houses, the shops, everything.â€
Many did not believe that their ordeal was really over.
“Israel doesn’t want peace,†said Ali Wahdan, 27, a medic walking on crutches over the rubble of the emergency services’ headquarters in Jibsheet. He was badly wounded in an Israeli airstrike that hit the building without warning during the first week of the war.
“I wish it were different," he said. “But this war will continue.â€
In the neighborhood of Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburb, entire buildings had been reduced to rubble after weeks of intense Israeli strikes. Ahmad Lahham, 48, waved the yellow Hezbollah flag standing on a mountain of rubble that used to be his apartment building, which had also housed a branch of Hezbollah’s financial arm, Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
“We are at the service of the fighters," said Lahham, pledging his loyalty to the group.
He praised Iran and said its pressure in its talks with the U.S. led to the truce, condemning Lebanon’s direct talks with Israel.
“Only the Iranians stood with us, no one else,†he said, calling Lebanon’s leaders “the leadership of shame.â€
A local government official in Haret Hreik said Israel struck the neighborhood 62 times over the last six weeks.
“We’ve been able to clear up the rubble of the partially damaged buildings, but for those destroyed, we will need special equipment,†Sadek Slim, the neighborhood’s deputy mayor, told a press briefing.
The area was gridlocked with traffic, with people coming back to check on their homes and Hezbollah supporters zooming on scooters, waving the group’s flag.
Meanwhile, in Al-Najda al Shaabiya Hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, officials there said Thursday was one of the heaviest days of Israeli strikes since this latest Israel-Hezbollah war began.
Hospital Director Mona Abou Zeid said the wounded continued arriving from nearby Israeli strikes until around an hour after the ceasefire technically took effect at midnight.
Among those wounded in the bombardment on Nabatiyeh Thursday was 33-year-old Mahmoud Sahmarani, who said he stepped outside his home to buy some charcoal for his shisha water pipe when an Israeli strike hit his five-story building, killing his father and cousin as they were peeling potatoes for lunch. All that remains of his apartment is rubble, leaving him and the rest of his family homeless.
“Israel should have withdrawn from Lebanon,†he said from his hospital bed, his left eye swollen shut and his head swaddled in bandages. “If we don’t get them out, they will continue to kill us.â€
