Lebanese marine ecologist Mona Khalil, 77, died on Friday (April 4) from severe injuries after an Israeli strike hit her home near Tyre last week. On the same day, Israel expanded airstrikes across southern Lebanon, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens more, threatening the fragile ceasefire between Iran and the United States.
“We are deeply saddened to report that Mona Khalil passed away today,” the environmental group Live Love Tyre said in a Facebook statement. “She will be remembered for an extraordinary legacy. Through everything, Mona chose to stay and care for the turtles of Live Love Tyre. Her life was selfless and impactful.”
Khalil was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1949, and spent several years living abroad before moving to southern Lebanon. In 1999, a chance encounter with a sea turtle emerging from the ocean to lay eggs on al-Mansouri beach near Tyre set her on a lifelong mission to protect the animals.
From then on, Khalil spent decades safeguarding the nesting grounds of endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles along the southern Lebanese coastline. Both species are critically threatened by coastal development, plastic pollution, fishing nets and light pollution, and are at risk of extinction in the eastern Mediterranean.
In 2000, she helped establish the Orange House, an eco-tourism project on al-Mansouri beach. She also documented marine life in southern Lebanon and campaigned for wildlife protection and coastal pollution control.
“She has left us but remains within us — we, her children,” said journalist and volunteer Fadia Joumaa, who worked closely with Khalil, in a Facebook tribute. Khalil’s death “is a loss for all of Lebanon... not only for us. A loss for the life she faithfully protected,” Joumaa added.
