Hezbollah and Israel appeared to de-escalate after a major confrontation over the weekend, tempering fears of an all-out conflict in the Middle East. But for people across the region, any feelings of relief were undercut by a deeper sense of deadlock.

After over 10 months of war in Gaza, roughly 150,000 displaced Israelis and Lebanese are still waiting to return to their homes along the countries’ border, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, were trading airstrikes and rocket fire long before Sunday’s escalation.

The violence there is intertwined with the 10-month war in Gaza, where tens of thousands have been killed and nearly the entire population displaced. Many there are still waiting for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, as they huddle into makeshift shelters and streets torn up by Israeli bombardment. The families of the dozens of hostages still held by Hamas and its allies hope for a deal, too, to free their loved ones.

“The mission needs to be to get us home,” said Giora Zaltz, the head of a regional council in northern Israel whose kibbutz, Lehavot HaBashan, saw some residents leave after Hezbollah began firing at Israel last October.

Mr. Zaltz said Israel’s airstrikes on Sunday, which the Israeli military said had pre-empted a significant Hezbollah assault, had done little to change the balance between the two sides. For residents of Israeli border communities, he said, the situation remained frozen: roughly 60,000 Israelis displaced, even as those who stayed behind faced daily rocket fire by Hezbollah.

Israel’s focus in fighting Hezbollah has been “to blow up infrastructure or kill their commanders,” Mr. Zaltz said. But in terms of creating the conditions for displaced Israelis to return home, he added, “for now, the state and the military are failing at this.”