\n
Lebanese environmental activist Mona Khalil, whose work helped turn a stretch of coastline in southern Lebanon into one of the eastern Mediterranean’s most important nesting sites for endangered sea turtles, has died after being wounded in an Israeli strike.<\/b><\/p>\n
Khalil, 76, was injured when her house on Mansouri beach, near the southern city of Tyre, was hit during Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon two weeks ago.<\/p>\n
She died on Friday after several days in hospital, according to a local environmental group.<\/p>\n
Her death came as Israeli air strikes intensified across southern Lebanon, raising concerns about renewed violence despite diplomatic efforts to maintain a fragile regional peace.<\/p>\n
The BBC has reached out to the Israeli military for a response.<\/p>\n
“She is a deeply committed environmental defender,” Hisham Younes, the founder and president of Green Southerners, told the BBC.<\/p>\n
“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\u2026.she was really into conservation, and into the soul, the spirit of conservation.”<\/p>\n
For more than 25 years, Khalil dedicated herself to protecting endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles that nest along Lebanon’s southern coast.<\/p>\n
Her conservation work began after what her loved ones described as a life-changing encounter with a turtle laying eggs on Mansouri beach in 1999.<\/p>\n
A refugee of the Lebanese civil war, Khalil was living in the Netherlands but had returned to visit her family’s seaside home.<\/p>\n
She was on the beach one night and saw a green turtle laying eggs on the beach.<\/p>\n
After learning that sea turtle populations in Lebanon were under threat, she committed herself to protecting them and later returned permanently to the country.<\/p>\n
Fast forward a year to 2000, and she helped establish the Orange House Project, an eco-tourism and conservation initiative overlooking Mansouri beach.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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