Under the agreement announced Friday after talks between rebels and regime ally Moscow, opposition fighters will hand over territory and heavy weapons in Daraa province near the Jordanian border.
The Russia-backed regime offensive has displaced around 320,000 people since June 19, the United Nations
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says, including tens of thousands who fled south to the sealed border with Jordan.
Calm reigned over the region on Saturday as the two sides finalized the ceasefire deal, the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
"People have started to return to their homes since yesterday, taking advantage of the calm," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"More than 20,000 people have set off for home so far, heading to areas for which an accord has been reached in the southeastern Daraa countryside," he said.
But others "are scared to return to regime-controlled areas, fearing their children will be locked away
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
," Abdel Rahman said.
The accord follows a string of similar deals with rebels for other areas of Syria, which have seen the regime retake more than 60 percent of the country, according to the Observatory.
A government takeover of Daraa would be a symbolic victory for
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
as the province was the cradle of the uprising against him seven years ago that led to civil war.
More than 150 civilians have been killed in the regime bombing campaign on Daraa since June 19, the Observatory says.
Under Friday's deal, rebels are expected to hand over their heavy weapons, while those who reject the agreement will be bused with their families to the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, state media has said.
Government forces will also take over "all observation posts along the Syrian-Jordanian border," it said Friday, hours after the regime regained control of the vital Nassib border crossing with Jordan.
On Saturday, "regime forces sent more reinforcements to the border crossing," Abdel Rahman said.
More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria's war started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
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"I wish the border will move so that we will be a part of Israel's territory, and Assad will not come to us," he said.
According to Samir, the rebels' surrender symbolizes Assad's victory: "Today they have finished Daraa, and with it—the revolution."
When asked where he was heading, Samir replied that he was going to Quneitra, but that "no one knows what happened to it."
According to the cease-fire agreement signed Friday between Russia and the rebels, control over many areas in the south of Syria will be returned to the Assad regime, including all border crossings along the border with Jordan. The agreement also states that all opposition groups will hand over their weapons, and all families, excluding rebel fighters, can return to their homes. After the rebels leave, the agreement stipulates, institutions in the region will resume operations.
The Al-Hayat newspaper reported that many rebels and refugees expressed their dissatisfaction with the agreement, saying they could have attained better conditions than those mediated by the Russians. The newspaper adds that another round of talks is expected to be held soon, in order to settle the situation in areas that have not been discussed with the Russians.
'If the world wants stability in Syria—Assad needs to go'
Said, who left Syria three years ago, lamented the fact that the civil uprising against Assad's regime is slowly dying, but noted that circumstances in the country will remain the same as long as Assad is in power.
"If the world wants to restore security and stability to Syria, Assad and his men should go," Said asserted.
"In the 2014 elections, we could not have voted for any other candidate. Aside from Assad, no one knew who was running against him, because his opposition is outside of Syria," he explained.
Said added that when he entered the local polling station on the day of the elections, a security guard accompanied him. "The regime takes families away from countries that assisted Assad, like Iran, and disperses them in Syria as if they were ordinary citizens… We must get rid of all armed militias—especially the Iranians and Hezbollah—bring all criminals to justice, and hand over the reins to the people themselves."
Meanwhile, Avichay Adraee, the IDF spokesman in Arabic, published a picture drawn by a Syrian girl who was hospitalized in an Israeli hospital after being evacuated from the fighting areas. "Thank you Israel for your love and support," it said.