The Orange House stood on the southern Lebanese coast, holding vigil over Mansouri beach and the azure Mediterranean beyond.
It has stood there for more than half a century, and in recent decades it has grown into one of Lebanon's most celebrated environmental hubs.
But on 4 June, the eve of World Environment Day, an Israeli strike destroyed the Orange House and gravely wounded its owner and Lebanese environmental activist Mona Khalil .
Mona had spent the last three decades of her life building one of Lebanon's most ecologically important nesting sites for sea turtles. She bore the weight of that mission almost on her own without any institutional funding or scientific backup.
She died two weeks later in Beirut from her injuries and was mourned as the first environmental martyr in Lebanon and the Arab world.
Those closest to her do not believe the strike was an accident.
Mona had stayed in the Orange House because she saw no reason anyone would target her, and she was among the most recognised people in the area. She had done the same in 2024, but the Lebanese army eventually persuaded her to evacuate, and she was the last to leave the area. She hated her time in Beirut and longed to return to the Orange House.
But this time she refused, telling her close friends that she was a civilian with no weapons who would simply shut her door.
To Rami Khashab, who began working with her in 2011, the shock is simply too much to handle.
"I still can't believe what happened, and I still can't accept the malice in it," he tells The New Arab .
"I know the targeting was deliberate. It was meant to destroy all the life on that beach, and every atom of hope. Mona was hopeful."
The volunteers she inspired must now carry that work through a fragile ceasefire, a wrecked village, and almost no money. How it began Born in Lagos in 1949, Mona spent the civil war years in the Netherlands and came home in 1999. A chance encounter with a sea turtle changed the course of her life in the early 2000s. She transformed the house her grandfather had built into a base for her conservation work, painting it orange as a tribute to the Netherlands , whose national colour is orange and which Mona said had offered her refuge during a difficult period in her life.
And thus, the Orange House became one of the first ecotourism projects in Lebanon, and its revenues funded conservation on Mansouri beach.
"Mona's story is exceptional because she wasn't a marine biologist or an academic researcher," says Rania Amro, a dear friend of Mona for the past 15 years. "She was an ordinary woman who saw a turtle come back, after many years, to the beach where it was born, and decided that was a miracle worth protecting."
Rania tells The New Arab that when Mona first began her activism, she knew very little about turtles. After encountering her first sea turtle at a time when social media did not exist, she began reaching out to environmental groups worldwide to learn more about conservation.
Her search for knowledge eventually led her to the Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtles , which trained her in turtle conservation.
By 2002, her work had contributed to the first published survey of Mansouri's turtle nests, and within just three years, Mona had become a recognised reference in the field, introducing scientific monitoring methods and sharing her knowledge with volunteers and environmental activists.
As her work developed, Mona began building a detailed record of Mansouri's turtle population.
In a country where official environmental monitoring has often been limited , her documentation helped create the first real field database for the nesting site, providing important information about sea turtle activity and conservation needs, Rania adds.
This research later helped highlight Mansouri's importance within Lebanon's wider sea turtle conservation efforts.
The country is home to two endangered species, the loggerhead and green turtle, which mainly nest along the southern coast. A 2019 nationwide survey identified five key nesting sites across Lebanon, including Mansouri, where 77 nests were recorded, 55 of them in the south.
The protection of Mansouri's coastline also became a broader community effort.
Journalist and activist Fadia Jomaa , who began volunteering with Mona in 2016, helped expand the campaign by challenging beach privatisation and coastal development.
Her work contributed to Mansouri becoming a recognised community conservation area and supported efforts to ban dynamite fishing.
Despite the challenges brought by conflict, the conservation work continued.
In 2023, after the Mansouri municipality was dissolved following the war, Mona and Fadia secured support through the Italian-run Blue Tyre project , which provided funding, a drone and nest sensors.
In 2025, they protected around 72 nests despite the dangers of war. More than turtles, Mona built a community Today, the volunteers Mona inspired are carrying forward the conservation work she spent decades building.
Each season, the team clears waste from the beach, tracks nesting trails, marks nests, and protects them from predators.
After 45 to 60 days, hatchlings are either moved to an incubator or released directly onto the beach, continuing a conservation effort built over decades.
The strength of Mona's legacy was evident immediately after her death. In the days that followed, her team secured nine more nesting sites, including five on the day of her funeral.
"It was a gift," Fadia says, describing it as a sign from a spirit she believes "is still watching."
Yet for those closest to Mona, her mission was never about creating a famous destination. It was always about protecting the turtles. As Rania explained, "She never set out to rebrand Mansouri beach."
Over 26 years, however, Mona's work transformed Mansouri beach into one of Lebanon's best-known nesting sites, attracting researchers and volunteers from across the country and abroad.
Her impact extended beyond conservation, creating a community that saw protecting the coastline as a shared responsibility.
Central to Mona's approach was the belief that conservation had to begin with people. She involved local children in beach clean-ups and paid them small sums so they would feel personally responsible for protecting the coastline.
That connection between people and place was also shaped by the personal losses Mona carried throughout her life. She had lost her only son in an accident years earlier, a grief that never disappeared.
But rather than allowing that pain to consume her, she transformed it into purpose. She often told Rania that 45 was the turning point of her life — the age when she found herself in Mansouri.
"If Mona could have chosen how to serve her cause after her death, she might not have chosen better than this," Rania says. "She proved that one person can change an entire community."
However, keeping Mona's work alive has not been easy. First came the grief of losing the woman who had dedicated decades to protecting Mansouri's turtles, leaving a deep void among the volunteers and the wider community she had built.
The day after she died, hundreds gathered in Beirut, including relatives, activists, environmentalists, and representatives from the ministries of culture and environment, to pay tribute to her. Greenpeace's MENA programme director called her loss a blow not only to her family and community, but also to Lebanon's environmental movement and the wider region.
Beyond the emotional toll, the team has also had to navigate the ongoing instability in southern Lebanon .
"Today, and after the strike, the security situation is unstable," Fadia explains. "Some of the volunteers have lost their homes."
Still, Mona's absence has not diminished the determination of those she inspired. As Fadia adds, "I'm determined to save the season with whatever we have." Keeping a vision alive Weeks after Mona was buried on 21 June on a hill overlooking Mansouri beach, as she had requested, the view from her resting place remains unchanged. The sand is still visible below, and each summer the turtles continue to return to lay their eggs.
But with Mona gone, a difficult question now faces those carrying forward her work: can the Orange House and the conservation movement she built survive without their protector?
For now, rebuilding the house is not the immediate priority. The ongoing instability and security situation in southern Lebanon have left the future uncertain, but Mona's family remains determined to keep her work alive.
"We hope to rebuild the Orange House one day and continue her legacy. The turtles will keep coming back; we need to support the people Mona trained to continue her work," her niece, Sarah Beydoun, told The New Arab. For Mona's sister Amal Khalil, however, preserving the spirit behind the Orange House matters more than the building itself.
As long as Israeli occupation continues and the security situation remains unclear, she believes the focus must remain on protecting the values Mona spent decades building.
"The Orange House may have been destroyed, but the idea it was built on has not," she says. "Mona's message won't stop at a place or a building."
As the family looks towards the future, they have pointed to new initiatives that could help carry Mona's legacy forward.
One possibility is the Environmental Commitment Award , announced by the Minister of Environment, Tamara Elzein, to recognise individuals and initiatives working to protect natural resources and raise environmental awareness.
In a statement shared last week, Tamara said : "Lebanon has lost one of its most prominent environmental activists and defenders of nature. Mona Khalil dedicated decades of her life to protecting the southern coastline, preserving biodiversity, and safeguarding endangered sea turtles and their nesting sites. Her orange house in Al-Mansouri became a symbol of environmental commitment and a gathering place for researchers, activists, and nature lovers.
"Mona Khalil's legacy of dedication and service to environmental protection will remain a lasting source of inspiration. In recognition of her exceptional contributions, the Ministry of Environment announces the launch of the 'Mona Khalil Award for Environmental Engagement', an annual award honouring individuals and initiatives that contribute to environmental protection, preservation of natural resources, and the promotion of environmental awareness in Lebanon."
But preserving Mansouri's future will require more than awards.
Conservationists argue that the area surrounding the Orange House should be upgraded from a hima (protected area) to a nature reserve , providing stronger legal protection for its sea turtle habitat while supporting the volunteers, researchers and activists who have spent decades protecting it.
Whether this will go ahead remains uncertain in the coming months, but given the community's determination and Mona Khalil's family's commitment to preserving her work, there is reason to believe that the movement she built can continue. Suzanne Abou Said is a journalist based in Lebanon This piece is published in collaboration with Egab