Israeli Airstrike Kills Lebanese Conservationist Mona Khalil Near Tyre

Lebanese conservationist Mona Khalil, 76, died Friday after an Israeli airstrike hit her beachside home two weeks earlier near the city of Tyre, according to NPR.

NPR reported that Khalil and her housekeeper, who is Ethiopian, were the only occupants of what was known as "the Orange House" just steps from the al-Mansouri beach.

Al Jazeera

The Israeli military told NPR it had no indication it had hit the house but was reviewing its records after the strike.

AP reported that mourners gathered Sunday in Beirut to pay respects to Khalil after she succumbed to wounds sustained in an Israeli strike on her home on the country’s southern coast.

Al Jazeera said mourners gathered in Beirut to remember Khalil, who was critically injured in the attack in the village of al-Mansouri in Tyre province on June 4 and succumbed to her wounds more than two weeks later on Friday.

Al Jazeera described the Orange House Project as a conservation hub and ecotourism site in al-Mansouri that became a refuge for endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles and a training ground for volunteers documenting nesting activity along the coast.

Al Jazeera

NPR quoted a volunteer’s account of Khalil’s conservation origins, saying she was first introduced to a green sea turtle while she was drinking a beer on the beach.

NPR also reported that Khalil had vowed to stay in her home during the fighting, believing she was safe because she was a civilian and there were no nearby targets.

NPR said Israel has invaded southern Lebanon and is attacking what it says are Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure, while the Lebanese health ministry says more than 4,000 people have been killed since the war began on March 2.

NPR reported that the Lebanese health ministry said the death toll includes at least 600 women and children, and it also said Israel says 35 soldiers and a military contractor along with two civilians have been killed in Hezbollah attacks.

In a separate account, the Times of Israel said Khalil was critically injured in an Israeli strike on June 4 that hit her home in the village of Mansouri, around 10 kilometers (six miles) south of the coastal city of Tyre, and that she was hospitalized at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

The Times of Israel also quoted the Israel Defense Forces telling CNN that Khalil was not a "target" and that "there is no known IDF strike in which she was injured," while acknowledging strikes were conducted in the area around her home village after evacuation warnings.