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.

Many Lebanese officials visited the bomb scene, including Lebanese Interior minister Marwan Charbel. Charbel was attacked by angry men who blamed him for being soft in dealing with Sheikh Ahmad Assir. Hezbollah helped the minister flee the neighborhood, while supporters and residents went to the streets raising the pictures of the group’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and chanting slogans.

“This is not to be mentioned if compared to the 2006 war, we are with Sayyed Hassan even if our houses were destroyed, and our children killed,” said Um Samih while staring at the explosion scene. “We know who did this," she elaborated. "They think this will make us leave Hezbollah, they don’t know us well."