On the eve of World Environment Day, the Israeli army targeted The Orange House, the south Lebanon home of marine ecologist and environmentalist Mona Khalil, leaving her critically wounded. Two weeks later, on 19 June, Khalil succumbed to her wounds in Beirut.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1949, Khalil spent years living in the Netherlands during Lebanon’s civil war. She returned to Lebanon in 1999, where her life took an unexpected turn after a chance encounter with a sea turtle.
Ramy Khashab, a consultant at the Environmental Centre and a close friend, recounted the moment Khalil felt sand being flung into the air by a nearby nesting green sea turtle.
It was after that night that she embarked on a mission to protect the sea turtles that nest along the shores of Mansouri, her hometown just south of Tyre.
“The Orange House was meant to be in every single way because that’s where she discovered the sea turtle that turned her life around,” Khashab, 32, told Middle East Eye.
