TYRE, Lebanon — Thousands of Lebanese displaced by the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants returned home Wednesday as a ceasefire took hold, driving cars stacked with personal belongings and defying warnings from to stay away from some areas.

If it endures, the ceasefire would end nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated in mid-September into all-out war and threatened to pull Hezbollah’s patron, Iran, and Israel’s closest ally, the United States, into a broader conflagration.

The deal does not address the war in Gaza, where Israeli strikes overnight on two schools-turned-shelters in Gaza City killed 11 people, including four children, according to hospital officials. Israel said one strike targeted a Hamas sniper and the other targeted militants hiding among civilians.

The truce in Lebanon could give reprieve to the 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by the fighting and the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along the border.

“They were a nasty and ugly 60 days,” said Mohammed Kaafarani, 59, who was displaced from the Lebanese village of Bidias. “We reached a point where there was no place to hide.”

The deal, brokered by the U.S. and France and approved by Israel late Tuesday, calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border.

Thousands of additional Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor compliance.

Israel says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah should it violate the terms of the deal.

Israel is still fighting Iran-backed Hamas militants in Gaza in response to the group’s cross-border raid into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

But President Joe Biden on Tuesday said his administration would make another push in the coming days for a ceasefire there and the release of dozens of hostages still held by Hamas.

Israel can claim major victories in the Hezbollah war, including the killing of Hezbollah’s top leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of its senior commanders, as well as the destruction of extensive militant infrastructure.

A complex attack involving exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, widely attributed to Israel, appeared to show a remarkable degree of penetration of the secretive militant group.

The battered Hezbollah has lost much of the mystique it acquired by fighting Israel to a stalemate in the 2006 war. Yet the Shiite militant group still managed to put up heavy resistance, slowing Israel’s advance while firing scores of rockets, missiles and drones across the border each day.

Israel carried out heavy strikes until the ceasefire took hold, pounding targets in the already hard-hit southern suburbs of Beirut known as the Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah was headquartered. Residents returning to its rubble-strewn streets on Wednesday projected defiance.

“We don’t care about the rubble or destruction. We lost our livelihood, our properties, but it’s OK, it will all come back,” said Fatima Hanifa, evoking the rebuilding after the 2006 war.

In Israel the mood was far more subdued, with displaced Israelis concerned that Hezbollah had not been defeated and that there was no progress toward returning hostages held in Gaza.

“I think it is still not safe to return to our homes because Hezbollah is still close to us,” said Eliyahu Maman, who was displaced from the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, which was hit hard in the months of fighting.

A handful of people milled around the city on Wednesday, inspecting damage from earlier rocket attacks. The town’s shopping mall, which had been hit before, appeared to have new damage, and a rocket was planted in the ground next to an apartment building.

A significant return of the displaced to their communities, many of which have suffered extensive damage, could take months.

Israel’s military warned displaced Lebanese not to return to evacuated villages in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops were still present following their ground invasion in early October. Israeli forces opened fire to push back a number of vehicles that were entering a restricted area, it said.

Three journalists, including a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press, said they were shot and wounded by Israeli troops while covering the return of displaced people to the town of Khiam, around 4 miles from the border, which had seen heavy fighting in recent days. The Israeli military said it was investigating.