Lebanese Sea Turtle Conservationist Dies After Israeli Airstrike

Mona Khalil, who established the Orange House Project around 2000 to protect loggerhead sea turtles on Lebanon's southern beaches, died June 20 after injuries sustained in an airstrike that struck her home near Tyre two weeks earlier. The strike destroyed the only dedicated turtle conservation program in the Eastern Mediterranean, leaving the critical 2026 nesting season unmonitored at sites where Khalil maintained irreplaceable field data and community networks.