AFP via Getty ImagesLebanese environmental activist Mona Khalil, whose work helped turn a stretch of coastline in southern Lebanon into one of the eastern Mediterranean’s most important nesting sites for endangered sea turtles, has died after being wounded in an Israeli strike.
Khalil, 76, was injured when her house on Mansouri beach, near the southern city of Tyre, was hit during Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon two weeks ago.
She died on Friday after several days in hospital, according to a local environmental group.
Her death came as Israeli air strikes intensified across southern Lebanon, raising concerns about renewed violence despite diplomatic efforts to maintain a fragile regional peace.
“She is a deeply committed environmental defender,” Hisham Younes, the founder and president of Green Southerners, told the BBC.
“She used to talk about the beach like it was a person. Her bond to the sunset, her bond to the water and the turtles….she was really into conservation, and into the soul, the spirit of conservation.”
For more than 25 years, Khalil dedicated herself to protecting endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles that nest along Lebanon’s southern coast.
Her conservation work began after what her loved ones described as a life-changing encounter with a turtle laying eggs on Mansouri beach in 1999.
A refugee of the Lebanese civil war, Khalil was living in the Netherlands but had returned to visit her family’s seaside home.
She was on the beach one night and saw a green turtle laying eggs on the beach.
After learning that sea turtle populations in Lebanon were under threat, she committed herself to protecting them and later returned permanently to the country.
Fast forward a year to 2000, and she helped establish the Orange House Project, an eco-tourism and conservation initiative overlooking Mansouri beach.
AFP via Getty ImagesWhat began as a small guesthouse evolved into a centre for environmental education, wildlife protection and marine research, attracting volunteers and visitors from around the world.
Khalil spent decades monitoring nesting sites, documenting marine life and campaigning against coastal development, pollution and destructive fishing practices.
Her efforts helped secure protected status for parts of the coastline and raised awareness of the threats facing marine ecosystems in Lebanon.
Friends and colleagues said she remained committed to her work despite years of conflict in southern Lebanon.
Her home had previously been damaged during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, but she refused to leave the beach she had spent years protecting.
AFP via Getty Images“Mona barricaded herself inside her house, receiving no visitors and believing she was safe because she is a civilian,” environmental activist and friend of Khalil, Maha Joumaa, told local media.
Joumaa said Khalil’s decision to stay was consistent with her character.
“She absolutely refused to be displaced, which was fitting for someone so determined,” she said.
Environmental groups said Khalil’s legacy would endure through the conservation movement she helped build and through the generations of turtles that continue to return to Lebanon’s shores.
Paul Abi Rached, the president of Terre Liban, recalled taking his children to visit Khalil in Mansouri in 2017 when they helped her release baby sea turtles onto the sand, and watched them make their way to the Mediterranean.
“Her love for the turtles was evident in every word and every action, but so was her love for people,” he told the BBC.
“That, perhaps, is Mona’s greatest legacy – she did not only protect turtles; she inspired people to care about them.”
Additional reporting by Angie Mrad
