Lebanese start to return home amid ceasefire

A CEASEFIRE between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah appears to be holding.

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Residents in cars heaped with belongings began streaming back towards southern Lebanon, despite warnings from the Israeli and Lebanese militaries that they should stay away from certain areas.

If it holds, the ceasefire would bring an end to nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated in midSeptember into all-out war and threatened to pull Hezbollah's patron Iran and the US, Israel's closest ally, into a broader regional conflagration.