Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire holds, Lebanese return south to still-smoldering towns

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Tens of thousands of Lebanese jammed bomb-damaged roads Monday to return to homes where they found still-smoldering scenes of destruction after 34 days of vicious combat with Israel ended with a tenuous cease-fire.

Hezbollah fighters hugged each other and celebratory gunfire erupted in Beirut when the Islamic militant group's leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah claimed a "strategic, historic victory."

Israeli Prime Ehud Olmert also claimed success, saying the offensive eliminated the "state within a state" run by Hezbollah group and restored Lebanon's sovereignty in the south.

In northern Israel, residents emerged from bomb shelters, hopeful that the barrage of nearly 4,000 Hezbollah rockets that had rained down on towns and villages since July 12 had ended — for now. Stores shuttered for weeks reopened and some people returned to the beaches in Haifa, which suffered most from guerrilla attacks.

President Bush said Monday that Hezbollah guerillas suffered a defeat at the hands of Israel and he blamed the guerrilla group for the devastation. "There's going to be a new power in the south of Lebanon," he said.

The conflict left nearly 950 people dead — 791 in Lebanon and 155 on the Israeli side, according to official counts.

The truce that took effect at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT) largely held through its first day, although six Hezbollah fighters were killed in skirmishes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah that illustrated the fragility of the cease-fire.

The odds of a durable end to the fighting depended on the quick deployment of the Lebanese army and an international force into the 18-mile-deep band of south Lebanon between the Litani River and the Israeli frontier.

A United Nations force that now has 2,000 peacekeepers in south Lebanon is to grow to 15,000 troops, and Lebanon's army is to send in a 15,000-man contingent.

Lebanon said its forces would be ready to deploy north of the Litani River this week, but that was unlikely to satisfy Israel, which wants a force along the border to rein in Hezbollah.

The French commander of the current U.N. force known as UNIFIL, Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini, told The Associated Press that additional troops were needed quickly because the stability of the cease-fire was fragile. The region is "not safe from a provocation, or a stray act, that could undermine everything," he said.