Israel murders Lebanese Sea-Turtle conservationist

Mona Khalil saved sea turtles in southern Lebanon. She was killed by Israel

Lebanese journalist and analyst Marwa Osman writes:

They knew exactly who Mona Khalil was.

They knew the bright orange house in Mansouri, south Lebanon. They knew it was not a military site, not a command center, not a battlefield position. It was one of the most recognizable symbols of environmental conservation on Lebanon's southern coast; a sanctuary dedicated to protecting endangered sea turtles and preserving life.

Mona spent her years defending the most vulnerable creatures of the Mediterranean, teaching generations that every life matters, that nature is not a casualty to be discarded, and that humanity has a duty to protect what cannot protect itself.

Yet the same orange house that stood as a beacon of conservation became a target for terrorist Israel.

This was an assault on a woman whose life's work was devoted to safeguarding life itself. A woman known internationally for her environmental activism, whose name had become synonymous with the protection of Lebanon's coastline and its endangered sea turtles.

The murder of Mona Khalil sends a chilling message: even those whose only weapon is compassion, whose only mission is preservation, are not spared.

Al Mayadeen reported:

Environmental activist Mona Khalil, widely known as the "guardian of the turtles" of Mansouri in the Tyre district, South Lebanon, has succumbed to injuries sustained in an Israeli strike that directly targeted her home on June 4.

The 76-year-old founder of the Orange House Project spent more than 25 years protecting sea turtles and preserving Lebanon’s marine turtle life along Tyre's coast, refusing to abandon her home despite repeated wars.

After leaving her career in the Netherlands, she dedicated her life to turning Mansouri Beach into a sanctuary for marine life.

According to L'Orient Le Jour, after Israeli occupation forces withdrew from South Lebanon in 2000, Mona founded the Orange House Project to protect this nesting site and ensure the survival of baby turtles until they returned to the sea.

The Orange House, just meters from the beach, was transformed into an eco-guesthouse whose revenues funded the preservation of a 1.4-kilometer stretch of coastline. This stretch of sand, which became her daily field of action, is home to turtle nesting as well as broader biodiversity.

Mona's death has been widely mourned.

The Green Southerners association described the Israeli attack on her home as a reminder that "highlights the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation in the South, which spare neither people nor the environment."

A CNN report from 2017:

In southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, lies a distinctive orange house.

Located just past a Lebanese Armed Forces military checkpoint in the Mediterranean city of Tyre, it is surrounded by luscious banana groves, sleeping goats and chirping birds.

This beautiful oasis is home to 68-year-old Mona Khalil, a self-proclaimed “protector of the sea turtles.”

In 2000, Khalil moved back from the Netherlands – where she’d sought refuge for 17 years during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) – to a piece of land she’d inherited from her grandmother.

On her return, she discovered that the endangered green turtle and the loggerhead, which is classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, can both be found nesting on the nearby secluded el Mansouri beach.

Between the months of May and September, the turtles’ hatching season, Khalil wakes at sunrise to monitor their habitat.

She carefully traces the beach for eggs, placing those she finds underneath a secure metal mesh further up the embankment.

Khalil meticulously details her findings and tracks the footsteps of adult turtles which scramble up the sand banks to lay eggs. She has presented her findings at MEDASSET’s biennial conference, and makes her data freely available.

Volunteers also regularly help her to clean the beach of plastic and other waste. These are both locals and guests on vacation, some of whom stay in The Orange House’s three guest rooms, which helps fund the upkeep of the project.

During the violent 2006 conflict between Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel, Khalil stayed put.

“I refused to go. It was the hatching season,” Khalil says. “One of the rockets came into the house and blew up.

“Me and my animals were all traumatized and I lost a bit of my hearing. But otherwise I’m still alive and kicking.”

The fighting was much more aggressive than Khalil had expected, but she would still monitor the beach and help the turtles hatch when she could.

“I managed to protect most of them,” Khalil says.

The Zionists want to strip this planet of all the goodness, the kindness and humanity, they suck the world dry of life wherever they exist. They are the plague of this age.

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