The patrol begins at dusk every night, as the thuds from nearby artillery echo over the distant hills in southern Lebanon. Some scouts settle into hidden perches on the outskirts of town, keeping close watch on the roads leading into it. Others hop on their motorcycles and roam the streets, alerting the police to any suspicious cars or strangers.

The volunteer force describes itself as the first line of defence in Hasbayya, a mostly Druse and Christian town near the Lebanese-Israeli border. But the volunteers are not scanning for only the Israeli troops who invaded southern Lebanon last month as the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel escalated. They are also trying to prevent Hezbollah fighters from entering the town — and dragging it into the wider war.

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict was once contained to the border region, but has since enveloped swathes of southern and eastern Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes have rained down across the region, levelling beige stone homes and pulverising villages into rubble. Hezbollah fighters have volleyed rockets back towards Israel and clashed with invading Israeli troops.

In Hasbayya, residents have established a neighbourhood watch group. Some local leaders have negotiated with Hezbollah to keep its fighters from launching rockets from the town.

Officials within Hasbayya have also turned away Shia Muslim families displaced from nearby villages where Hezbollah is dominant — a move that risks inflaming sectarian tensions that are always simmering. Local officials said they feared that Hezbollah fighters might be among the families, which could make them — and by extension the town — a target of Israeli strikes.

Locals know that Hezbollah, with its overwhelming military might, could go back on their pledge to steer clear of Hasbayya at any time and the town would be largely powerless to stop them. But for now, Hezbollah is treading lightly to maintain some goodwill with other sects and religious communities — and Hasbayya residents are doing what they can to deter the group.

“We don’t want any strangers or anyone related to Hezbollah here,” Ghassan Halabi, the deputy mayor of Hasbayya, told visiting New York Times journalists last month. “It took us years to build this town and it could all be destroyed within minutes. We can’t allow that to happen.”

Sprawled across the foothills of Mount Hermon, Hasbayya is only 10km from the Israeli border. Winding roads connect clusters of houses and thickets of olive and pine trees, as well as ancient ruins dating back to the Crusader period. The town is home to about 30,000 people, mostly Druse Lebanese — adherents to a 1,000-year-old religion — as well as Christians and some Sunni Muslims.

These days, Hasbayya is cloaked in the din of war raging around it: The booms of artillery shells, the buzz of drones and the screech of Israeli jets overhead. When airstrikes hit in the distance, plumes of smoke curl into the air along the green slopes of mountains.

When Hezbollah began launching rockets into Israel last year in support of Hamas, prompting months of tit-for-tat strikes, local leaders in Hasbayya and other nearby Christian and Sunni villages approached Hezbollah officials in the area with a request.

"We asked them not to launch rockets from inside the town,” said Wissam Sliqqa, a Druse sheikh and local leader in Hasbayya. “We wanted to preserve the safety of our residents and ensure they could remain in their homes” and not be forced to flee north, he explained.

Hezbollah leaders agreed. But when the war intensified and Israeli airstrikes began pummeling villages on the edge of Hasbayya, panic took hold.

Worried that Hezbollah fighters might fall back to Hasbayya, dozens of residents volunteered with the municipality police to work shifts on a new neighbourhood watch. They created a WhatsApp group for people in nearby villages to flag anything suspicious. The mayor, Abu Nassar, imposed an 8pm curfew, after which all residents must remain inside their homes. After midnight, no cars are allowed to enter or drive through Hasbayya.

“We’re worried,” said Kanj Nawfal, a municipal police officer who oversees the volunteer guards. “We are trying to be careful but if something happens,” he added, his voice trailing off. He wrung his hands, searching for the right words.

“This war is bigger than us,” Nawfal explained.

New York Times News Service