Mourners gather in Beirut after Lebanese conservationist dies from Israeli strike wounds
Mourners have gathered in Beirut to remember Lebanese conservationist Mona Khalil, who died from wounds sustained in an Israeli strike on her home in southern Lebanon. Khalil, 77, was critically injured in the attack in the village of al-Mansouri in Tyre province on June 4 and died more than two weeks later, on Friday. Her death has prompted an outpouring of grief among environmentalists and volunteers who worked with her over many years.
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According to the supplied report, Khalil had spent more than two decades protecting sea turtles along Lebanon's coastline. She was born in Lagos in 1949 and held both Dutch and Lebanese citizenship after living in the Netherlands before returning to Lebanon. She later settled in what had once been her grandmother's home in al-Mansouri, a building that became known as the Orange House.
The Orange House Project developed into a small conservation hub and ecotourism site, and a training ground for volunteers documenting nesting activity along the coast. The project became a refuge for endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles. Each nesting season, Khalil and volunteers patrolled the beach at night, marking fresh tracks in the sand and relocating vulnerable nests away from human activity and coastal light pollution.
Her death also carries wider significance because it links a civilian conservation figure to the continuing impact of the conflict in southern Lebanon. The report says Khalil had been injured during an Israeli attack while the area remained exposed to violence linked to the broader confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah. It also notes that during the previous war in 2024, she initially refused to leave al-Mansouri beach before the Lebanese army persuaded her to evacuate for her safety.
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Those who knew her described a strong attachment to the coast and to the work she built there over decades. Journalist and environmental activist Fadia Jomaa said she first met Khalil in 2016 while researching sea turtles in Lebanon and later volunteered with the project. Jomaa said Khalil was the last person to leave the area during the 2024 war and that she struggled in Beirut, longing to return to the south and the beach she had spent years protecting.
What remains unclear from the available information is whether there have been any further official statements on the strike that wounded her or on the circumstances of her death. The immediate focus is on the mourning in Beirut and the legacy of the Orange House Project, which had become closely associated with conservation work in southern Lebanon. Attention is likely to remain on the human cost of the conflict and on the future of the site and the volunteers who worked there.
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