The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned a terrorist attack in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, which injured dozens of people.

Calling the blast an "heinous act," the council reiterated their determination in a statement to combat all forms of terrorism and stressed the need to bring the perpetrators to justice.

A powerful blast rocked an area controlled by the Lebanese Shiite militant party of Hezbollah in southern Beirut Tuesday, injuring 53 people.

The UN Security Council appealed to all Lebanese people to preserve national unity in the face of attempts to undermine the country's stability, urging all Lebanese parties to refrain from any involvement in the Syrian crisis.

Derek Plumbly, UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said earlier in the day that such "cowardly acts of violence" aim at destabilizing the country and spreading fear and are completely unacceptable.

Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel condemned the car bomb as "an attempt to create Sunni-Shiite strife".

Anti-Hezbollah sentiment has been running high in Lebanon since the militant party acknowledged its engagement in the fight against the western-backed rebels in central Syria.

On May 26, two rockets slammed into a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, hours after the Hezbollah leader said in a speech that his party was involved in the Syrian crisis.