Roads heading south of Beirut were packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic today as thousands of people returned to war-ravaged towns. The movement came as a cease-fire began to take effect between Israel and Hezbollah after more than 13 months of bloodshed.

Under the agreement — mediated in part by the U.S. and approved by Israel and Lebanon — Israeli forces will withdraw from Lebanon over the next 60 days. Hezbollah, which had been weakened, isolated and desperate for the war to end, will move its fighters north. And the Lebanese Army announced today that it had dispatched some of its forces to the country’s south.

Still, questions remain about the durability of the truce. The Israeli military declared a curfew tonight in southern Lebanon and shelled two villages there, saying that it had identified a vehicle in “a zone prohibited for movement.”

In northern Israel, where tens of thousands of people fled to escape barrages of Hezbollah rockets and drones, there was no apparent rush back to the evacuated towns.

President Biden said he hoped the cease-fire could pave the way to an end to the war in Gaza, but experts doubt it. Palestinians there said that they had lost hope that the war would ever end.