Mona Khalil, a widely respected Lebanese conservationist who led decades of sea turtle protection on Lebanon’s southern coast, has died at 76 after an airstrike struck her beachside home near Tyre two weeks ago. Relatives said Khalil and her Ethiopian housekeeper were the only occupants of the Orange House, a small guesthouse and community conservation hub just steps from al‑Mansouri beach; the housekeeper survived with less‑severe injuries.
Khalil’s entry into turtle conservation is often recalled in a single vivid scene: while drinking a beer on the sand, a nesting green sea turtle covered her with sand as the animal laid eggs. That encounter prompted her to reach out to European protection groups, learn nesting and monitoring techniques, and mobilize volunteers to protect the green sea and loggerhead turtles that return to the same beaches where they hatched.
Over more than two decades she turned the Orange House into an ecotourism guesthouse, an educational site for children and a center for coastal protection. She trained generations of volunteers to patrol beaches at dawn, locate nesting clutches laid under cover of night, protect nests with wire mesh, and release hatchlings into the sea. Volunteers and researchers note that, because of threats from coastal development, marine debris and predators, only about one in 1,000 hatchlings survives to adulthood — making local protection work crucial.
Former volunteer and journalist Fadia Joumaa, who took over the turtle program after Khalil retired in 2020, said Khalil had vowed to remain in her home during the fighting, believing she was safe as a civilian and because there were no military targets nearby. Rami Khachab, a 32‑year‑old herpetologist from al‑Mansouri who began volunteering in high school, described accompanying Khalil before dawn to check nests and gather data.
Khalil also campaigned against privatizing beaches and against destructive fishing practices, including a successful push to ban dynamite fishing in the area. Local conservationists say she could be combative when necessary — “Mona was a fighter,” Joumaa recalled — and that her advocacy sometimes provoked hostile reactions from opponents.
The Israeli military told NPR it had “no indication” that it struck the Orange House and said it was reviewing records, without giving a timeline for that review. The attack came amid Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, which it says targets Iran‑backed Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure. Lebanon’s health ministry reports that more than 4,000 people have been killed since the current conflict began on March 2, including at least 600 women and children. Israel reports casualties from Hezbollah attacks that include dozens of soldiers, a military contractor and some civilians.
Environmental group Green Southerners praised Khalil as one of Lebanon’s most respected voices for marine conservation and biodiversity protection and called for accountability for the deaths of Khalil and other civilians. Khalil’s work — from hands‑on nest protection to community organizing and education — left a lasting conservation movement on Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast, one carried on by former volunteers and the community she helped organize.
Jawad Rizkhallah contributed reporting from Beirut.