Farid Abdul Nour is among the many Lebanese-Canadians still arriving in Canada more than a month after the Mideast fighting began and days after a ceasefire was announced.

But Nour and other new arrivals aren't convinced that the truce between Israel and Hezbollah will last.

"I'm not optimistic," he said after arriving in Montreal late Monday. "I don't see any solution near — too many problems. I don't think it will last."

Andre Abi Akal hadn't even heard that the fighting had stopped until he arrived at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. He was still travelling when the UN-mediated ceasefire took effect.

"I hope everything will go good, because we still have relatives there, and we don't need more, to see kids … all that blood for nothing."

At the start of the fighting, there were an estimated 50,000 Canadians in Lebanon, making them one of the largest foreign communities in the country.

Ottawa had chartered a number of vessels to take Canadians out of Lebanon after July 12, when a cross-border raid by Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants spurred Israel to begin massive airstrikes and send troops into the country.

By the end of July, an estimated 13,000 Canadians had left.

Hundreds more set sail

Last Sunday, another 800 Canadians sailed from the port of Beirut on a ship chartered by the Canadian government.

"Canadian officials were hoping to accommodate about 1,200 Canadians who wanted to leave," CBC correspondent Nahlah Ayed reported from Beirut.

"However, in the end, it looks as if just over half have decided to take advantage of the opportunity."

The arrivals in Montreal on Monday were mainly people who had fled first to Syria then flew to Canada from there.

The conflict has so far killed at least 700 people in Lebanon and 130 in Israel. About 30,000 Israeli troops have entered southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has essentially been operating a state within a state since Israel withdrew from the country in 2000.

Since the ceasefire, the Lebanese government has been warning people not to return to their homes. But thousands are streaming back despite fears the ceasefire might not hold.