BINT JBAIL, Lebanon - Lebanese, Israeli and UN officers met on the border Monday to discuss the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the region after a UN-imposed cease-fire halted fighting in the monthlong conflict.

Meanwhile, Lebanese civilians defied an Israeli travel ban and streamed back to their homes in war-ravaged areas. Israeli forces fired on two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon just hours after the guns fell silent, highlighting the tensions that could unravel the peace plan.

Lebanese civil defense personnel and civilians using their bare hands to search for victims in the rubble of several collapsed apartment buildings in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Aug. 14, 2006, following an Israeli warplane bombardment on Sunday afternoon. Security officials later said that three people, including two children, were killed in the raid.Refugees began traveling back to their homes immediately after a cease-fire took effect at 8 a.m. (0500GMT) on Monday, Aug. 14, 2006. [AP]

But for the first time in a month, no Hezbollah rockets were fired into northern
Israel.

Lines of cars - some loaded with mattresses and luggage - snaked slowly around bomb craters and blasted bridges outside Beirut toward southern Lebanon as residents began heading home to find out what is left of their homes and businesses.

Israel has not lifted its threat to destroy any vehicle on the roads of most of south Lebanon. But Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Monday that aside from isolated skirmishes with Hezbollah, the cease-fire was holding and could have implications for future relations with Israel's neighbors.

In some places in the south, the rubble was still smoldering from a barrage of Israeli airstrikes just before the cease-fire took effect at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT).

"I just want to find my home," said Ahmad Maana, who went back to Kafra, about five miles from the Israeli border, where whole sections of the town were flattened.

In Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, people wrapped their faces with scarves as wind kicked up dust from the wreckage left by Israeli bombardments. Ahmed al-Zein poked through the ruins of his clothing and home-furnishing shop.

"This was the most beautiful street in the neighborhood," he said. "Now it's like an earthquake zone."

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