BEIRUT — The buses started rolling south at dawn, packed with families who fled when the rockets began falling three months ago. By noon Saturday, the first Lebanese civilians had crossed back into villages that Israeli forces abandoned just 48 hours earlier.

This is what a ceasefire looks like on the ground. Not clean. Not complete. But movement.

Families risk the return

Mahmoud Khalil carried his 4-year-old daughter on his shoulders as he walked through the rubble that used to be his front door in Maroun al-Ras. The village sits two kilometers from the Israeli border. Close enough to hear tank engines. Close enough to matter.

"The Israelis left Thursday night," said Khalil, a construction worker who spent 11 weeks sleeping in a Beirut school gymnasium. "We came back Friday morning. My house has no roof, but it has walls."

His calculation is simple math that diplomats in Washington cannot understand. A destroyed home you can rebuild. A home in someone else's country you cannot.

The Lebanese Army deployed 3,000 troops to the south on Friday, their largest movement since the 2006 war. They are not fighting Hezbollah. They are not disarming anyone. They are filling space that Israeli forces vacated under an agreement that nobody calls permanent.

Colonel Rashid Bukhari, the army's southern sector commander, said his troops had secured 47 villages by Saturday afternoon. "Secured" means different things to different people. To Bukhari, it means Lebanese soldiers control the roads. To returning families, it means the shelling stopped.

What the ceasefire actually says

The truce that took effect Thursday at 4 a.m. local time runs 11 pages. Most of it is about what happens next, not what stops now. Israeli forces withdraw south of the Blue Line within 60 days. Hezbollah fighters move north of the Litani River. Lebanese troops deploy between them.

But here is the problem with that timeline: Nobody is enforcing the 60-day deadline.

The agreement establishes a monitoring committee with representatives from Lebanon, Israel, the United States, France, and UNIFIL. They meet weekly in Naqoura. They file reports. They do not have arrest powers.

"This is not 1701," said Karim Makdisi, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, referring to the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war. "This is something new. Something weaker."

UN Resolution 1701 required Hezbollah's complete disarmament south of the Litani. The new agreement requires their "withdrawal" from the same area. Different word. Different obligation.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday that Israeli forces would maintain "freedom of action" if they detected Hezbollah violations. Translation: Israel reserves the right to strike again.

The numbers that matter

Lebanese officials estimate 400,000 people fled their homes during three months of cross-border fighting that began when Hezbollah fired rockets in solidarity with Hamas on October 8. Most went north to Beirut, Tripoli, and the Bekaa Valley.

By Saturday evening, Lebanese Army checkpoints recorded 23,000 people moving south. That is 6% of the displaced population. The other 94% are waiting to see if the quiet holds.

The destruction they are returning to is methodical. Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah weapons depots, command centers, and tunnel networks. But the bombing also hit civilian infrastructure that Hezbollah controlled: hospitals, schools, water treatment plants.

In Bint Jbeil, the largest town in the border area, 11 of 14 schools suffered damage. The main hospital lost its emergency wing. The municipal building is gone.

"We have electricity four hours a day," said Mayor Afif Bazzi. "We have water when the generator works. We have people coming home anyway."

Iran's shadow presence

Hezbollah's compliance with the withdrawal remains the agreement's central test. The group's fighters have operated south of the Litani for 18 years, since Resolution 1701 was supposed to keep them out.

This time feels different because Iran is distracted. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who assumed power after his father's death in February, faces domestic unrest and economic collapse from US sanctions. His priority is regime survival in Tehran, not proxy wars in Lebanon.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders who coordinated with Hezbollah have been killed or reassigned since the March strikes on Tehran. The command structure that managed Lebanon operations for two decades no longer exists.

"Iran is not abandoning Hezbollah," said Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the Washington Institute who tracks Shia militias. "But Iran cannot micromanage Lebanon while fighting for its life at home."

The next test comes Tuesday, when the monitoring committee holds its first meeting in Naqoura. Lebanese Army intelligence reports will determine whether Hezbollah fighters are actually moving north or simply changing uniforms.

Israeli reconnaissance drones continue flying over southern Lebanon. The agreement allows this. But it also allows Hezbollah to call the flights provocative.

The ceasefire is 72 hours old. In Lebanon, that counts as progress.