An Israeli drone struck Thursday a car in the southern border town of Markaba, wounding at least two people, a day after a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel came into effect.

The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month cease-fire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers.

Israeli forces opened fire to push back a number of vehicles that were entering a restricted area, in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops were still present following their ground invasion in early October.

Three journalists, including a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press, said they were shot and wounded by Israeli troops while covering the return of displaced people to the town of Khiam, around 6 kilometers from the border, which had seen heavy fighting in recent days.

For many across the Middle East, the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire came as a relief: the first major sign of progress in the region since war began more than a year ago.

But for Palestinians in Gaza and families of hostages held in the territory, the news appeared only to inaugurate a newer, grimmer period of the conflict there. For them, it marked yet another missed opportunity to end fighting that has stretched on for nearly 14 months.

Beside the graves of Hezbollah fighters in eastern Lebanon's Baalbek region, families with tears in their eyes paid respects to the dead and celebratory gunshots could be heard in the background Wednesday, the first day of a ceasefire between the militant group and Israel.

“The resistance (Hezbollah) will stay to defend Lebanon,” Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Mokdad told reporters while visiting the graves. “We tell the enemy that the martyrs thwarted their plans for the Middle East.”

As a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appears to hold in Lebanon, fighting raged on in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 33 bodies had been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll in the nearly 14-month-long war to 44,282.

The Biden administration kept President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration closely apprised of its efforts to broker the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah that took effect early Wednesday, according to the outgoing Democratic administration.

Trump's team, meanwhile, was quick to spike the football and claim credit for the rare spot of good news for a Democratic administration that's been dragged down by the grinding Mideast conflict.

Hamas said it’s ready to cooperate with any effort to bring about a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, after Israel and Hezbollah reached a truce to end months of fighting.

The deal does not address the war in Gaza. International mediators have repeatedly failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a deal that would end the brutal, 13-month-long war.

An Israeli security official says Israeli forces remain in their positions hours after a ceasefire took place and will only gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon.

The official, speaking Wednesday on condition of anonymity under military briefing rules, would not say when troops would begin the withdrawal but said it would be completed during the 60-day period laid out in the ceasefire agreement.

France’s foreign minister underlined his country’s role in brokering an agreement that ended fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah alongside the U.S., saying the deal wouldn’t have been possible without France’s special relationship with its former protectorate.

“It’s a success for French diplomacy and we can be proud,” said the minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, speaking hours after the ceasefire went into effect Wednesday.

The Lebanese army asked displaced people returning to southern Lebanon to avoid frontline villages and towns near the border where the Israeli military is still present until the troops withdraw, as a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appeared to take hold.

"With the ceasefire coming into effect, the army is taking the necessary measures to complete its deployment in the south," the army said in a statement. "The army command calls on citizens to wait before returning to frontline villages and towns that Israeli enemy forces have penetrated, awaiting their withdrawal."