Madhat al-Saleh, who was killed in Quneitra on Saturday night while on his way home in an action that foreign media outlets attributed to Israel, will be laid to rest in Syria, and most likely buried near his home in the village of Ein Tina, social media in Lebanon and Druze media outlets operating in the Syrian Golan Heights were reported late Tuesday.
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The reports also said that al-Saleh's family, most of whom live in Majdal Shams – a village on the southern foothills of Mount Hermon on the Israeli Golan – will hold a memorial service for him there.
Media outlets in Arab countries, as well as Syrian and Lebanese media, provided little coverage of the targeted killing, but various reports out of Lebanon and from Syrian intelligence services in Damascus assessed that al-Saleh, who had been under Israeli surveillance, was targeted by an elite IDF unit that had penetrated deep into Syrian territory adjacent to Majdal Shams and then split into three teams of snipers. Once in position, the reports said, the snipers waited for al-Saleh, who was driving home to his village in Quneitra. When his car approached the sniper ambush, the snipers reported fired at him from a distance of about 200 meters (approximately 650 feet). The first bullet hit al-Saleh in the lower back and the second, fatal, bullet hit him in the chest. He died on the scene.
According to Lebanese sources, after determining that al-Saleh was dead, the snipers left their posts and returned to Israel, taking care to remove any signs of their presence.
Social media accounts of Lebanese officials involved in the event quoted various officials from the Golan Druze, who said that al-Saleh knew that his cooperation with Tehran and members of Revolutionary Guards Corps in the Syrian Golan, who are working to establish terrorist infrastructure to attack Israel, could turn out to be a double-edged sword.
The Damascus regime did not care for, to say the least, al-Saleh's involvement in attempts by Hezbollah and pro-Iranian militias in southern Syria to build terrorist infrastructure and attack Israel. As the Assad regime attempts to stabilize its control of southern Syria after the country's bloody years-long war, Damascus wants to keep the Syrian-Israeli border stable and quiet. In addition to al-Saleh being out of favor with the Assad regime, sources in Majdal Shams said that he was deep in debt after the war stopped apple exports by Druze farmers in the Syrian Golan.
While a member of Syria's parliament and the official representative of the Druze people in the Syrian government, al-Saleh held the Golan Heights portfolio. Over the years, he garnered massive benefits from the export of apples grown on the Syrian Golan. When the border crossings with Israel were closed, he suffered heavy financial losses, which led to complications with his ties with Syrian government officials as well as Syrian intelligence officials in southern Syria and earned him several enemies.
A resident of a Druze village in the Golan who is close to al-Saleh's family in Majdal Shams spoke to Israel Hayom and said, "Al-Saleh's fall began back in 2005. President Assad, who was close to him, distanced himself and he was also thrown out of parliament."
According to the Druze source, "Al-Saleh made a lot of money but the civil war stopped everything all of a sudden and he was in debt, and apparently that caused him to form ties with Iran. He apparently thought that the Iranians would put him back in positions of influence in Damascus and would line his pockets with money, and to all that you have to add his hatred for Israel.
"I don't think that anyone in Damascus is weeping over the assassination of Madhat al-Saleh," the source said.
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