"Hey! We found the eggs!" Cheers erupted on the public beach of Jbeil, north of Beirut, on one of the last mornings of June. Amid abandoned jet skis and plastic beach loungers, a small group of volunteers knelt in the white sand. 

Less than an hour after starting their search, they uncovered a clutch of sea turtle eggs.

The discovery was remarkable. During the night, a female loggerhead turtle had crawled ashore to lay her eggs. By daybreak, the same stretch of sand was already bustling with swimmers, surfers, and holiday-makers.

This article has been published through the Ecologist Writers' Fund. We ask readers for donations to pay some authors £250 for their work. Please make a donation now. You can learn more about the fund, and make an application, on our website.

Nesting

"When I arrived that morning, I saw a large hole in the sand and first thought someone had fallen", recalls lifeguard Michel Koury, who spotted the nest. "Then I checked the security camera footage and saw the turtle."

The 18 years old lifeguard immediately contacted surfers who knew Lebanese reptile conservationist Rami Khashab, one of the country’s best-known wildlife rescuers, and reached out to him. 

Rami joined to organize the search. After carefully locating the nest and counting the eggs, the team fenced off the area, which was almost directly beneath parked jet skis. Volunteers are monitoring the nest daily until the hatchlings emerge.

"You wouldn't have seen this level of awareness ten years ago," says Khashab. "Back then, many nests would have gone unreported."

Ordinarily, he would spend the nesting season on Mansouri Beach in southern Lebanon, one of the country’s most important nesting grounds for endangered sea turtles. 

Retaliation

But this year, the ongoing war between Hezbollah and Israel, especially Tsahal’s attacks, have made that difficult.

On June 4, renowned conservationist Mona Khalil was at her home, the Orange House on Mansouri Beach, when an Israeli strike hit the building. She was seriously injured alongside her domestic worker, Hawi, and was taken to the hospital, where she died on June 19.

For decades, Khalil dedicated her life to protecting Lebanon's sea turtles. She often discovered the nests herself, trained volunteers, monitored hatchlings and welcomed people willing to discover this part of Lebanese biodiversity. 

She was forcibly displaced in 2024, during the first war’s escalation. On 27 November, a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah but was violated many times by Tsahal. 

On 2 March, following Ali Khamenei’s assassination by USA and Israel in Iran, Hezbollah launched rockets towards the north of Israel. Israel bloody retaliation since then has led to the death of more than 4,000 people and the displacement of one million. 

Threatened

Despite a new ceasefire which came into effect on 17 April, Israel’s attack has been ongoing daily and part of Lebanon is still under occupation. 

A peace framework was signed in June between Israel and Lebanon, without Hezbollah, and the Lebanese army has started to deploy in some areas under occupation. Some incidents were already reported.  

After this new escalation in March, Mona Khalil had refused to abandon the beach despite repeated threats and bombardments. Her death sent shockwaves through Lebanon's environmental community.

Finding new nests has become more than just conservation work. "It's therapy," says Khashab. "It balances out all the chaos happening in the country." 

Activists, however, insist that Khalil's death was not an isolated tragedy. Since the escalation of war in October 2023, many of Lebanon's land keepers have been killed or abducted or threatened.

Destruction

Hisham Younes, the president of the environmental organization The Green Southerners, told The Ecologist: "People kept returning to feed animals, protect wildlife, and care for their beehives despite the danger because they felt responsible for their land."

He himself has lost two close colleagues since the conflict began. "Time and again, they were killed while carrying out these tasks."

Among them was Osama Farhat, who documented environmental destruction and Israeli white phosphorus attacks along the southern border before being killed in an Israeli airstrike on 1 May 2025. Mohammad Skaf, a Green Southerners member, died on 31 May 2026, when an Israeli strike destroyed his home. 

Roland Riachi, an assistant professor of political ecology at the American University of Beirut, Mediterraneo, believes those documenting environmental damage face particular risks. 

"Anyone trying to archive and document what is happening becomes a target: journalists, academics, doctors. They are recording the destruction caused by this war."

Protect

Another example of that brutality is the assassination of the journalist Amal Khalil, by an Israeli strike on 22 April. 

The southern Lebanese reporter was covering developments near Al-Tiri with her colleague Zainab Faraj when the car in front of them was struck by an Israeli attack. Later, their car was hit too. The two journalists sought shelter in a nearby house, which was later bombed. 

Rescue teams, initially prevented from reaching the site, managed to evacuate Faraj but were forced to retreat under Israeli threats before they could save Khalil. Her body was recovered later that day. 

When we met her sister Zainab Khalil at the family home on 5 May, she remembered Amal as someone who always put animals before herself. 

Zainab said: "On the very day she was killed, Amal stopped to rescue a turtle she had found in the road. She was always ready to protect everyone else, more than herself.”

Detained

The Israel army also tries to intimate and to infuse fear among the locals who decide to stay, especially the residents who are taking care of the land. 

In May, Israeli forces abducted farmers, originally from Halta, tending olive groves near Rachaya el-Foukhar in southern Lebanon. 

"They are no longer only attacking food systems," says Bachar Abu Saifan from Agrimovement, a Lebanese organization supporting farmers. 

"They are attacking the people of the land. This has been happening for decades: in Lebanon, in the occupied Palestinian territories, and in Syria."

According to the NGO Legal Agenda, at least 30 people abducted from Lebanese territory are still detained in Israel. 

Phosphorus

Eleven were seized during the first ceasefire, between November 2024 and March 2026, including a shepherd and two fishermen. Since 2 March, a further eight people have been abducted, among them the three farmers from Halta, a sunni majority village at the border, and three Hezbollah fighters.

For many Lebanese environmental organizations, the killings, the abducation and the ongoing destruction of lands and life is part of wide scorch earth campaign, which they describe as an ecocide. 

Since October 2023, more than 50,000 hectares of land have been affected by the war, particularly in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. 

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented the repeated use of white phosphorus in populated and agricultural areas. Lebanese organizations have also reported the use of herbicides, including glyphosate, near the border.

Sea

Environmental groups argue that the cumulative destruction of forests, farmland, biodiversity, and water resources should constitute crimes against the environment under international law.

Fifty-seven kilometers north of Mansouri, on the beach of Rmeileh, Fadia Jomaa slowly pushes thin bamboo sticks into the sand. Displaced by the war, she continues her sea turtle conservation efforts along a different stretch of coastline. 

Eight nests have already been identified since last year. The bamboo rods help detect hidden nests beneath the sand. If the ground suddenly becomes softer, the team knows that a turtle has laid eggs there. When nests are threatened by beachgoers or erosion, volunteers carefully relocate them to safety.

Everything Jomaa knows about this work, she learned from Mona Khalil. "A few years ago, she told us: 'I'm becoming too tired. The sea is now in front of you. Go down to the beach, prove what you're capable of, and continue this work.'"

Life

Today, those words have turned into a sense of responsibility. Jomaa has received threats for her work by many different groups, as reported by Reporters Without Borders. For Jomaa, Khalil's killing represents part of a broader campaign against Lebanon's environment. 

"Israel knew exactly who they were targeting. They killed a symbol of environmental protection. Mona systematically exposed the environmental damage caused by every Israeli war.”

While much of southern Lebanon remains inaccessible due to ongoing Israeli attacks and military occupation, conservationists continue documenting biodiversity, protecting wildlife, and preserving what remains of ecosystems scarred by war. 

For them, saving a clutch of turtle eggs has become about much more than just turtles: it is about ensuring that, despite the destruction, life continues.

This Author

Amélie David is a freelance journalist based in Lebanon covering environmental and climate change stories. This article has been published through the Ecologist Writers' Fund. We ask readers for donations to pay some authors £250 for their work. Please make a donation now. You can learn more about the fund, and make an application, on our website.