Mona Khalil watches small sea turtles crawling on the sandy beach of al-Mansouri, south of Beirut, in 2003. Khalil, a protector of sea turtle hatching sites, died Saturday after sustaining injuries in an Israeli attack on Lebanon on June 5. File Photo by Nabil Mounzer/EPA
A Lebanese conservationist and protector of sea turtles died from injuries she suffered when her home was hit by an Israeli strike.
Mona Khalil, 76, died after suffering injuries from an Israeli attack on her home at al-Mounsouri Beach on Lebanon’s southern coast on June 5. Her assistant was also injured in the attack, according to Green Southerners, a local nonprofit.
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The Israeli military told CNN that Khalil “was not a target” of the Israel Defense Forces. “There is no known IDF strike in which she was injured,” the military said in a statement Saturday. “However, strikes were conducted in the area after the IDF issued evacuation warnings.”
Khalil was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and moved to her parents’ homeland Lebanon at age 7. In her 20s, she fled to the Netherlands to escape the Lebanese civil war and became a porcelain restorer. She attained British citizenship because she was born in a British colony.
She returned to Tyre, Lebanon, when she inherited property from her grandmother. There, she spent the rest of her life protecting the nests of loggerhead and green sea turtles.
Both species of turtles are threatened by coastal development, plastic pollution, fishing nets and light pollution. They are at risk of extinction in the eastern Mediterranean.
Khalil helped create the Orange House, an eco-tourism project at al-Mansouri beach. She painted her house orange to symbolize the safety the Netherlands had given her.
“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. 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.”
In 2006, CNN profiled her, and she said she refused to leave her sea turtles even among fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
“Me and my animals were all traumatized, and I lost a bit of my hearing. But otherwise I’m still alive and kicking,” Khalil told CNN at the time. “I live every day to the fullest and don’t worry about tomorrow.”
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