The Israel Defense Forces told CNN<\/a> that Khalil was not a \u201ctarget,\u201d and that \u201cthere is no known IDF strike in which she was injured.\u201d<\/p>\n It acknowledged, however, that strikes were conducted in the area around her home village \u201cafter the IDF issued evacuation warnings.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition \t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n Khalil was the founder of the Orange House Project, a sea turtle sanctuary named in tribute to the Netherlands, where she lived during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.<\/p>\n \t She returned to Lebanon from the Netherlands in 1999, when, on a visit to her family\u2019s abandoned home near Tyre, she had her first encounter with the endangered sea turtles that lay their eggs on the Lebanese coast.<\/p>\n She recalled the encounter in a 2006 interview with the New York Times<\/a>, telling the newspaper that she came across them \u201ccompletely by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI suddenly heard a noise. It was a turtle creeping through the sand coming to lay her eggs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Lebanon is home to subspecies of the green turtle and loggerhead turtle, both of which are highly endangered according to the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon.<\/p>\n The two species lay their eggs along the coast of Tyre in southern Lebanon and at the Palm Islands Nature Reserve in the country\u2019s north.<\/p>\n According to the Times, Khalil successfully protected 58 sea turtle nests on the strip of coast around her village.<\/p>\n She also delved into ecotourism, hosting guests at the Orange House who would volunteer to protect sea turtle nests and take part in beach cleanups.<\/p>\n \t Guests who wished to stay at the Orange House, which was also home to rescue cats and dogs, had to be coordinated with the Lebanese military, the Guardian reported, due to its proximity to the Israeli border and therefore the increased risk of being caught up in flare-ups between the IDF and the Hezbollah terror group.<\/p>\n The Orange House was indeed hit by a strike during the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah. Then too, Khalil had refused to listen to calls to evacuate her land, as she was unwilling to leave the vulnerable sea turtles behind.<\/p>\n In a 2017 interview<\/a> with CNN, she recalled staying put during the 2006 war, saying she had refused to leave as \u201cit was the hatching season.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the rockets came into the house and blew up,\u201d she recounted. \u201cMe and my animals were all traumatized and I lost a bit of my hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n Tributes to Khalil poured in on Saturday from local and international conservation groups.<\/p>\n Julien Jreissati, program director at Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa, said Khalil had \u201cdedicated decades of her life to protecting the sea turtles and coastline of Mansouri.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHer loss is not only a loss for her family and community, but for the environmental movement in Lebanon and the region,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n Local environmental group Green Southerners on X mourned \u201ca pioneering environmental defender\u201d who for decades \u201cdedicated her life to protecting endangered sea turtles and their nesting habitats.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThrough the Orange House, she inspired generations of Lebanese to value and protect their natural heritage and coastal ecosystems,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n Khalil was \u201ca well-rounded person \u2014 extremely tough, extremely kind,\u201d her sister, Amal Khalil, told<\/a> the Times.<\/p>\n \t Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in March after over a year of relative quiet, when the Iran-backed terror group renewed its rocket fire on Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran\u2019s supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the US-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n Hezbollah at the time also cited Israel\u2019s continued presence and strikes in Lebanon since the November 2024 Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement, which had ended over a year of hostilities initiated by the terror group.<\/p>\n Israel has said its continued operations in Lebanon since the 2024 agreement were required because the Lebanese government had failed to carry out its obligation under the deal to disarm Hezbollah and it was thwarting immediate threats.<\/p>\n Hezbollah\u2019s renewed attacks on Israel in March triggered massive Israeli airstrikes and a full-scale invasion of southern Lebanon, where authorities say more than 4,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. The figures to not differentiate between civilians and combatants.<\/p>\n The IDF says it has since early March killed over 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group\u2019s elite Radwan Force.<\/p>\n Israeli forces have lost 35 IDF soldiers and a Defense Ministry civilian contractor since March 2.\u00a0Two civilians were also killed by Hezbollah rockets, and an Israeli civilian was mistakenly killed in the north by Israeli artillery shelling.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident \u2013 ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded \u2013 I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.<\/p>\n There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.<\/p>\n As a Times of Israel reporter, I\u2019m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit\u2019s. But my colleagues and I can’t do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.<\/p>\n \u2014 Stav Levaton, military reporter<\/p>\n \t\t\t
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\n\t\tMona Khalil, a conservation specialist and founder of the Orange House Project, releases turtles into the sea at al-Mansouri beach near Lebanon\u2019s southern city of Tyre, on July 31, 2019. (Mahmoud Zayyat\/AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AFP__20040907__NIC2004090705590__v1__HighRes__LebanonMarineTurtles-300x480.jpg\")
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\n\t\tMona Khalil shows a newborn sea turtle, August 26, 2004, at al-Mansouri beach near Lebanon\u2019s southern city of Tyre. (Joseph Barrak\/AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AFP__20260620__B7QH4ZT__v1__HighRes__FilesLebanonIsraelIranUsWarEnvoronmentTurtleObi-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tMona Khalil (R) and her assistant collect turtle eggs and baby sea turtles, at al-Mansouri beach near Lebanon\u2019s southern city of Tyre, on August 26, 2004. (Joseph Barrak\/AFP)<\/p>\n
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