Traffic built up in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Thursday (June 18), as people headed further south after the United States and Iran released the text of an interim agreement signed by their presidents to end the war.

The U.S.-Iranian memorandum starts the clock on a 60-day negotiation period to reach a final settlement to the war, which Trump launched in February alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But Israel, which launched an invasion in March and has since seized a large swathe of southern Lebanon in its pursuit of Hezbollah militants who opened fire across the border in support of Iran, was excluded from the negotiations.

Iran has always said any peace deal must also cover Lebanon. In an apparent major concession to Iran, the memorandum signed by Trump explicitly calls for the "permanent termination" of the war in Lebanon and for its "territorial integrity and sovereignty" to be ensured.

Israel has said it has no intention of withdrawing from Lebanon, whatever Trump negotiates. It released a new map on Thursday showing an expanded southern area occupied by its troops, which it describes as a buffer zone.

While fighting in Lebanon tamped down at the start of this week when Trump first announced the deal had been reached, it has ticked up again over the past few days, and continued on Thursday morning after Trump's signature.

Lebanese State news agency NNA said three people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese towns of Kfartebnit and Zebdine on Thursday. Reuters reporters heard an Israeli drone flying low over Beirut and its southern suburbs.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

SIDON, LEBANON (JUNE 18, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all)

1. VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC, AS PEOPLE HEAD FURTHER SOUTH / CHILDREN STANDING ON TRUCK AND WAVING

2. CHILDREN SITTING IN TRUCK

3. VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC HEADING SOUTH, VEHICLES LOADED WITH BELONGINGS

4. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LEBANESE DISPLACED FROM SOUTHERN LEBANON, MOHAMMED HASHEM, SAYING:

“I’m scared of the energy I'm going to feel as soon as I see the destruction in the village. Don't think that because I'm going to the village and that I'm somehow happy about it, because if my own house is okay, I'm heartbroken over the other houses in the village whose features have disappeared, the ones that are gone. Almost all of the village's heritage is gone. I mean, almost everything we used to dream of is gone. So honestly, I don't feel happy.”

5. VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC

6. CAR WITH HEZBOLLAH AND IRAN FLAGS DRIVING

7. TRAFFIC

8. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LEBANESE DISPLACED FROM SOUTHERN LEBANON, UMM (MOTHER OF) MOHAMMED SAAD, SAYING:

“By God, I was displaced, and my belongings are still in the car, (moving) from one place to another. I didn't have one fixed place.”

9. VEHICLE WITH MATTRESSES ATOP OF IT DRIVING PAST

10. TRAFFIC, MEN WAVING FLAGS DEPICTING LATE HEZBOLLAH LEADER HASSAN NASRALLAH

11. CHILD IN CAR HOLDING FLAG DEPICTING NASRALLAH

12. VEHICLES LOADED WITH BELONGINGS DRIVING