Lebanese Father Sacrificed His Life To Save Hundreds From A Suicide Bomber: Reports

By Jack Phillips
November 17, 2015 Last Updated: November 17, 2015
Ali (C-L) and Malak (C-R), the children of Adel Termos, who was killed in a twin bombing attack that rocked a busy shopping street in the area of Burj al-Barajneh in Beirut's southern suburb, carry a portrait of their father during his funeral in the village of Tallussa in the Nabatiyeh governorate, south of Lebanon on November 13, 2015. Lebanon mourned 44 people killed in south Beirut in a twin bombing claimed by the Islamic State group, the bloodiest such attack in years, the Red Cross also said at least 239 people were also wounded, several in critical condition. (MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty Images)

The name Adel Termos will be remembered by many in Beirut, where two attacks killed more than 45 people a day before the Paris attacks on Friday.

Termos was walking in an open-air market with his daughter when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives. During the chaos, Termos apparently saw a second bomber preparing to blow himself up. So he made the decision to tackle him to the ground before the bomb went off. Reports say that the saved numerous lives, including his daughter, by tackling the bomber.

The bombs killed 45 people and left 200 injured in Lebanon’s capital city of Beirut during rush hour.

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“There are many, many families, hundreds probably, who owe their completeness to his sacrifice,” Elie Fares, a blogger and physician based Beirut, told Public Radio International.

“In a way, Adel Termos broke human nature of self-preservation. His heroism transcended his own life to save others,” Fares later told The Washington Post on Monday. “To make that kind of decision in a split second, to decide that you’d rather save hundreds than to go back home to your family, to decide that the collective lives of those around you are more important than your own is something that I think no one will ever understand.”

The Islamic State, or ISIS, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

There currently are around 1 million Syrian refugees living in Lebanon, and the country has been hit by 18 terrorist attacks in the past three years or so. This was only the second terrorist attack claimed by ISIS in the country. The terrorist group also claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in Paris that left 129 people dead, and a splinter group claimed responsibility for downing a Russian airplane that left hundreds more dead.

The wife (C) of Adel Termos, who was killed in a twin bombing attack that rocked a busy shopping street in the area of Burj al-Barajneh in Beirut's southern suburb, mourns during his funeral in the village of Tallussa in the Nabatiyeh governorate, south of Lebanon on November 13, 2015. Lebanon mourned 44 people killed in south Beirut in a twin bombing claimed by the Islamic State group, the bloodiest such attack in years, the Red Cross also said at least 239 people were also wounded, several in critical condition. AFP PHOTO / MAHMOUD ZAYYAT (Photo credit should read MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty Images)
The wife (C) of Adel Termos, who was killed in a twin bombing attack that rocked a busy shopping street in the area of Burj al-Barajneh in Beirut’s southern suburb, mourns during his funeral in the village of Tallussa in the Nabatiyeh governorate, south of Lebanon on November 13, 2015. Lebanon mourned 44 people killed in south Beirut in a twin bombing claimed by the Islamic State group, the bloodiest such attack in years, the Red Cross also said at least 239 people were also wounded, several in critical condition. AFP PHOTO / MAHMOUD ZAYYAT (Photo credit should read MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty Images)

“The street is still divided by political and sectarian lines, but this time around the sense is that these are people, period,” Fares said of the political situation in Lebanon. “They’re dead because of something they had absolutely no role in … They died because of some demented, twisted politics.”

Fares added that it would be incorrect to call the bombing victims martyrs.  

“Calling them martyrs is a sort of Lebanese way to not only dehumanize them, it’s to sort of make ourselves feel better that, yeah, it’s okay, they died, but they’re martyrs which means they’re in heaven and they’re in a better place,” he says. “But the fact of the matter is it’s just sort of a label to make ourselves feel better, and maybe their families feel better because the label of ‘victim’ means there’s a sort of accountability to the process.”