Adel Termos: An unsung hero of the Beirut bombings

“Friday marked a day of mourning in Lebanon following an attack by ISIS suicide bombers who killed at least 43 people and wounded more than 28 in Southern Beirut”, the author, Javier Simon, wrote in his piece titled “In Wake of Paris Attacks, Is the Mainstream Media Undermining Wider ISIS Threat?” But Thursday’s was the largest IS attack ever in Lebanon, and among the deadliest bombings to hit the volatile country in decades.

Hezbollah volunteers are fighting in Syria helping the army and the militias to counter the armed gangs.

The attackers had planned to launch five suicide bombings inside a hospital in the deprived Beirut suburb of Burj al-Barajneh on Thursday, Interior Minister Nuhad Mashnuq said, but they changed their target because of heavy security.

One Instagram user, Karuna Ezara Parikh, provoked controversy by posting a poem lamenting this imbalance in the world’s response to the attacks in Paris and Beirut.

ISIS released a statement in French on Saturday, November 14th and claimed responsibility for the attacks. The bombers blew themselves few meters apart from each other, one outside a Shia mosque and another inside a local bakery. In Paris, ISIS attacked the city’s progressive youth, massacring dozens enjoying their night out at a concert, a soccer game and a restaurant.

And you know what, I’m fine with all of it. Over the past year or so, I’ve come to terms with being one of those whose lives don’t matter.

Meanwhile in Turkey, 102 people died in bombings in Ankara in October.

Three other bombers were killed in the explosions.

“I understand Paris is a beloved and familiar space for a lot of people, but it troubled me that #Beirut, a city my father grew up in, had received so little attention after the horrific bombings two days earlier”, she said in the caption posted alongside the poem.

So why the difference in sympathies for Paris and Beirut?

On Twitter, nitizens widely mourned his death.

French President Francois Hollande called the attack “despicable”, and the White House vowed that “such acts of terror only reinforce our commitment to support the institutions of the Lebanese state”. The Paris Metro was also closed down. They started to use the #PorteOuverte hashtag to search for or offer safe places for those in need. Yet the attack was barely noticed in the West. As messages of solidarity with France flood my social media feeds, and friends and peers express horror at the atrocities committed, I’m left wondering why my own people – and my peers, who make up the bulk of my stories – aren’t deemed worthy of the same caliber of coverage, the same palpable collective grief. He has family connections in Beirut and Paris. “I live here now”. There have been no attacks by ISIL or ISIS against Israel and of course the reason for that is because they certainly don’t want to fight and defeat them. President Hollande told reporters outside Bataclan that “terrorists capable of carrying out such atrocities must know that they will face a France that is determined and united”.