Checkpoints, sometimes two to a street, dot the neighborhood. Men wearing yellow Hezbollah armbands and equipped with radios and TSA-style blue gloves search car trunks and truck beds. Residents say the checkpoints are necessary to guard against what some say is an Israeli plot designed to sew discord between Lebanon’s Sunnis and Shiites, who are fighting on opposite sides of Syria’s civil war.

Hezbollah, founded after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and a major backer of neighboring Syrian President Bashar Assad, has also installed hundreds of barriers so cars can’t park directly in front of buildings. If visitors, residents or customers want to park they either need to have a key or ask the shop owner to let them park. Unattended cars and suspicious strangers are swiftly approached and inspected.

Hezbollah members even searched a Saudi Arabian diplomatic vehicle and detained two Saudi citizens for what the Saudi ambassador said was hours last week.

The heightened security comes as Hezbollah supporters pay a high price for the group’s involvement in the Syrian civil war. Freshly printed posters of Hezbollah fighters killed in action dot light poles and walls. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened to send more troops if needed.