4 min readUpdated: Jun 22, 2026 11:49 AM IST
Famous Lebanese conservationist and environmentalist Mona Khalil has succumbed to severe injuries after an Israeli strike hit her home in Tyre last week. Khalil was known for her work to protect nesting sites of endangered sea turtles across the coastline of southern Lebanon,
Her death came on a day when Israel intensified air strikes across southern Lebanon, leaving at least 20 people dead, less than 24 hours after the new ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah was announced.
Khalil worked for the conservation of the endangered species of the green sea turtle, as well as the vulnerable species of the loggerhead sea turtle, as classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. For more than two decades, she protected these turtles who laid their eggs on a beach near ‘The Orange House’, her famous bed-and-breakfast and kept their habitat safe.
Mona Khalil, a Lebanese conservationist who died on Friday after being wounded in an Israeli strike on her home on Lebanon’s southern coast, releases baby sea turtles in Mansouri village near Tyre city, south Lebanon, July 29, 2018. (AP Photo)
Protector of the Sea Turtles
Khalil’s journey with turtle conservation dates back to a chance encounter with a turtle on the secluded Mansouri beach near Tyre in 1999.
She established the famous ‘Orange House Project’ in 2000, after she moved back from Netherlands – where she had lived in exile for 17 years during the Lebanese Civil War – to a piece of inherited land in Mansouri beach. She established this turtle conservation and eco-tourism project to help protect Lebanon’s turtles. The house was painted orange, in memory of the safety Netherlands provided her with.
In an interview with CNN in 2017, Khalil talked about the violent 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, and said, “I refused to go. It was the hatching season.” She stuck around even when the fighting turned aggressive and managed to protect most of the nests.
Speaking to local media, environmental activist and friend of Khalil Maha Joumaa said, “She absolutely refused to be displaced, which was fitting for someone so determined.”
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A young sea turtle on a beach in southern Lebanon, where conservationist Mona Khalil worked to protect endangered nesting habitats. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Such incidents are a part of her decades-long effort to protect the turtles, which continue to be highly threatened by coastal development, plastic pollution, and fishing nets, and are at risk of becoming extinct in the eastern Mediterranean.
Parts of the coastline were accorded protected status due to her sustained endeavours in the region, with her work raising awareness about many threats that marine ecosystems in Lebanon face.
A Lasting Legacy
“It is with deep sadness that we mourn the passing of Mona Khalil today. She succumbed to her injuries after her house was bombed in Mansouri. She will be remembered through an incredible legacy,” said environmental group Live Love Beirut in a post on Instagram.
Talking to the BBC, Paul Abi Rached, the president of Terre Liban, while recalling an incident where he met Khalil in 2017, said, “Her love for the turtles was evident in every word and every action, but so was her love for people”.
Environmental groups said that her greatest legacy would not only be the marine life she protected, but the movement that has inspired people to care and love for the turtles, as passionately as she did.
