Lebanon arrested the entire network behind the suicide bombings in southern Beirut suburb of Bourj al- Barajneh within 48 hours, according to the interior minister.

Twin suicide bombings struck a southern Beirut suburb that's a stronghold of the militant Shiite Hezbollah group on Thursday evening, killing at least 43 people and wounding scores more in one of the deadliest attacks in recent years in Lebanon.

The attack was quickly claimed by the extremists Islamic State group, which is fighting in neighboring Syria and Iraq but has not had a recognized affiliate in Lebanon, though the tiny Mediterranean country has seen deadly spillovers from the civil war next door.

The explosions hit minutes apart during rush hour in an area of southern Beirut called Burj al-Barajneh, a Hezbollah stronghold. The Shiite group has been fighting in Syria along with Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces. The area has been hit in the past and Sunni militant groups have threatened to carry out more attacks there.

Along with the 43 killed, the bombings also wounded 239 people, the Health Ministry announced. For more than an hour, ambulances struggled to ferry the wounded and the dead from the neighborhood while Lebanese troops and Hezbollah gunmen cordoned off the area, preventing anyone from getting close to the site of the two blasts, less than 50 meters (yards) apart.

Lebanon arrested five Syrians and a Palestinian over suspected involvement in the attack, said reports. Investigators also identified the network behind the operation.

"The network includes seven people in addition to the suicide bombers. Obviously, there was a major plan to bomb Lebanese targets," said the minister, adding they arrested the entire network behind the bombings within 48 hours.

The attackers targeted the al-Rasoul al-Aazam hospital with five suicide bombers, the minister said, but the assailants altered their plans due to security measures.

He stressed that Lebanon must find solutions to its current political disputes, due to which the country has been without a president since May 2014. Political stability is the only means to secure the country, he said.

"They targeted civilians, worshippers, unarmed people, women and elderly, they only targeted innocent people," Hezbollah official Bilal Farhat told The Associated Press, calling it a "satanic, terrorist attack."

Hospitals in southern Beirut called on people to donate blood and appealed on residents not to gather at hospital gates so that ambulanced and emergency staff could work unhindered.

Thursday's attack shattered a period of relative calm in Lebanon. It was the first such large-scale bombing since mid-2014, and comes amid much political upheaval in the country. It was also the deadliest attack in Lebanon since 23 August, 2013, when two car bombs exploded outside two Sunni mosques packed with worshippers in the northern city of Tripoli, killing 47 people and wounding hundreds.

Lebanon has been without president for over a year. The country has seen major protests in the past few months over the government's inability to agree on a solution for a festering garbage crisis, and parliament has not functioned properly for years.

Syria's civil war has spilled over into Lebanon on multiple occasions, inflaming sectarian tensions between the country's Sunnis and Shiites and leaving scores dead. The Lebanese Sunni and Shiite communities have lined up on opposing side of Syria's civil war — Sunnis broadly support the Sunni rebels fighting against Assad while the Shiites typically back Assad.

Lebanon also hosts more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees — equivalent to a quarter of the country's entire population.