Mourners gather to remember Lebanese environmentalist killed by Israel | Israel attacks Lebanon News

Prominent turtle conservationist Mona Khalil was injured in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon.

Mourners have gathered in Beirut to pay their respects to a much-loved Lebanese environmentalist who died of wounds inflicted by an Israeli weapon at his home on the country’s southern coast.

Mona Khalil, 77, who spent more than two decades protecting sea turtles along the Lebanese coast, was seriously injured in the attack in the village of al-Mansouri in the province of Tire on June 4 and died of her injuries two weeks later on Friday.

News of his death sparked an outpouring of grief among conservationists and those who volunteered and worked with him over the years, many of whom gathered in Beirut on Sunday.

The Orange House Project, which Khalil helped build a small conservation center in al-Mansouri, has become a refuge for endangered green turtles and a training center for volunteers who work as nesters on the beach.

Khalil was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1949. He had Dutch and Lebanese citizenship, having lived in the Netherlands before returning to Lebanon and settling in what was once his grandfather’s house – a house that would later become known as the Orange House.

At the center of Khalil’s work was a narrow beach, al-Mansouri beach, where a brief encounter with a sea turtle that came out of the sea to lay eggs in 1999 set him on a lifelong journey of devotion to animals.

During each nesting season, Khalil and volunteers patrol the beach at night, marking new tracks in the sand and carefully moving the endangered nests away from human activity and light pollution from the beach.

Journalist and environmental activist Fadia Jomaa first met Khalil in 2016 while researching Lebanese turtles and decided to volunteer with his work.

During the last war between Israel and the Lebanese army of Hezbollah in 2024, Khalil initially refused to leave al-Mansouri beach, Jomaa said. The Lebanese army eventually persuaded him to move to safety.

“He was the last one to leave the community,” said Jomaa.

“He had a bad time in Beirut,” the reporter said, adding that Khalil longed to return to the south, to the Orange House and the beach he spent years protecting.

“He used to say, ‘My life will be here,'” Jomaa said, recalling conversations where Khalil would point to an olive tree or a hill overlooking al-Mansouri beach. “He used to say, ‘This is where you will bury me.’

Where Khalil will be placed is unknown and depends on security in the area, Jomaa said.