science
Mona Khalil, 76, Dies After Israeli Strike on Her Home Near Tyre
The Lebanese environmental activist was injured two weeks earlier at her house on Mansouri beach and died Friday. She had protected sea turtle nesting sites for more than 25 years.
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Mona Khalil, 76, died on Friday after being injured when her house on Mansouri beach near Tyre in southern Lebanon was hit during Israeli attacks two weeks earlier. Khalil had lived and worked at the site for more than 25 years protecting endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles.
She helped establish the Orange House Project, an eco-tourism and conservation initiative overlooking the beach, in 2000.
Her conservation work began after she observed a green turtle laying eggs on Mansouri beach in 1999 while visiting from the Netherlands. A refugee of the Lebanese civil war, she later returned permanently to Lebanon and committed herself to protecting the nesting sites.
Khalil refused to leave her home during earlier conflicts in southern Lebanon, including the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, when her house was previously damaged.
"She is a deeply committed environmental defender," Hisham Younes, founder and president of Green Southerners, told the BBC. "She used to talk about the beach like it was a person. " "Mona barricaded herself inside her house, receiving no visitors and believing she was safe because she is a civilian," environmental activist and friend Maha Joumaa told local media.
Paul Abi Rached, president of Terre Liban, recalled taking his children to visit Khalil in Mansouri in 2017 to help release baby sea turtles onto the sand. "Her love for the turtles was evident in every word and every action, but so was her love for people," he told the BBC. " The BBC has reached out to the Israeli military for a response regarding Khalil's death.
