Eager to restart their lives and return home, many were hopeful that the truce would stick, but not confident.

“For the last six to seven months the firing has been very intense and we can’t live in our village,” Isher Singh, a 72-year-old farmer whose village is about half a mile from the disputed border, said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Singh, like thousands of others, has lived on and off in government-run camps because of the cross-border shelling. His family has lived through decades of violence and survived the three wars India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir.

“We can’t do our agriculture, we can’t rear our animals and our children can’t go to school,” he said. “Our lives become hell during the firing. We are happy with this cease-fire news and hope it will last.”

The nascent agreement follows a rare cease-fire announced by the Indian Army in Kashmir for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends mid-June. That cease-fire is the first Ramadan truce in 18 years.