A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
In Lebanon, where celebratory gunfire rang out in the capital this morning to mark the start of the ceasefire negotiated by Israel and Lebanon.
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
The deal aims to end the fighting across the Israeli Lebanese border that has killed thousands of people since it was ignited by the war in Gaza last year. It was brokered by the U.S. and France and announced by President Biden.
MARTÍNEZ: For more on the deal, we're joined now by NPR's Lauren Frayer in Sidon in southern Lebanon. So, Lauren, people were celebrating the ceasefire in Beirut. What was the scene like?
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Yeah, I was going to set my alarm for 4 a.m. Turns out I didn't need to. I was awoken by this celebratory gunfire erupting across the city, sort of mixed with the dawn call to prayer from mosques across the city. Dogs started howling into the night. Even before the first light, evacuees started heading south to try to see if their homes are still there. I'm on the coastal highway. There are minivans packed with families, belongings tied on car roofs, people blasting music, beeping their horns, cheering. A young boy knocked on my car window and handed me a poster of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September. So the mood is definitely festive here, but a lot of these people may find that they don't have homes standing anymore.
MARTÍNEZ: Have you been able to talk to people along the way? I mean, how are they processing this? I mean, at least it's got to feel like a relief of some kind.
FRAYER: Here's one woman I spoke with. Her name is Patricia Talib (ph). She's 24. She had stopped on the shoulder of the highway to let one of her children pee on the side of the road. They're from a village in the south that saw fierce ground battles, and the Israeli military has warned people not to return to some of these areas because Israeli troops are still there. They're in retreat, but they are still in this country. And I asked Patricia if she's worried about finding Israeli soldiers, you know, in her house.
PATRICIA TALIB: To begin with, people weren't - are not really intimidated by the entity. We know that this is the end days of the war, and we know that, ultimately, it's going to be OK. We personally - we stayed for the first week of the war, so we didn't really want to leave our village, to begin with. It was only because we were in the way of the resistance that we actually ended up leaving our village.
FRAYER: You can hear her kids there in the background. When she says resistance, she means Hezbollah fighters.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, I know it's new, but can you fill us in on the details of this agreement?
FRAYER: Yeah. So this is a 60-day truce - which would take us up to Donald Trump's inauguration incidentally - during which Israel withdraws its ground troops from Lebanon. It halts airstrikes, and, in turn, Hezbollah moves its fighters and weapons north of the Litani River. That's about 20 miles away from the Israeli border. The Lebanese Army is deploying down into southern Lebanon alongside U.N. peacekeepers who are already here and an international committee will be monitoring implementation of this. As for whether this is holding, it is - it apparently seems to be so far. There was one incident in which the Israeli military says it identified what it says were Hezbollah operatives returning to areas near the border. It opened fire on them. That doesn't appear to have kicked off anything wider.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, many of the targets of Israeli strikes in Lebanon were either in the nation's south or in and around Beirut. What's the scale of recovery?
FRAYER: Yeah. I mean, parts of Lebanon, particularly in the South and Beirut's southern suburbs, look like Gaza. They've been completely destroyed. This is orders of magnitude compared to the last war here in 2006, and it will take years - perhaps even decades - to rebuild. I'm in Sidon, an ancient port city on the Mediterranean, and this is sort of the boundary of southern Lebanon. So the mood has been very jubilant here as people head south and celebrate this ceasefire, but I suspect the mood will really change going south from here.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, the ceasefire aims to put an end to Hezbollah militant attacks on Israel, which have displaced tens of thousands of people in the nation's north. What's the situation now for them?
FRAYER: So Israel is still not calling on its residents to return to their abandoned homes in the north of that country. Officials there say there will be a one- to two-month period of rebuilding before they initiate that return. It's worth mentioning many mayors inside Israel - particularly along that border - oppose this ceasefire. One called it a shameful agreement. They have real security concerns, not only the fear of a resumption of Hezbollah rocket attacks but also a possible Oct. 7-like attack.
MARTÍNEZ: The NPR's Lauren Frayer. Lauren, thanks.
FRAYER: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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