In a moment, life in Bir el-Abed neighborhood came to a stop. It was an explosion that made the busiest street in Hezbollah’s stronghold, Beirut's southern suburbs, look like a war scene. Shattered windows were everywhere, and the rebuilt buildings that were destroyed in the 2006 war with Israel looked as if they were recalling their old tragedy.
Nobody was killed in the explosion in a public parking lot of the Islamic Coop supermarket, said Lebanese Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil, who spoke to journalists while visiting the blast scene. Health officials told Al-Monitor that 53 people were injured, many of them slightly.
