20 October 2021

On Saturday morning, 16 October 2021, Medhat Al-Saleh, 54, was assassinated by the Israeli occupation army sniper. According to Syrian sources* and the media, the sniper shot 11 bullets at Medhat while he was working next to his house in Ain Al-Teeneh, opposite occupied Majdal Shams, hundreds of meters from the ceasefire line. Ain Al-Teeneh consists of houses inhabited by dozens of Syrians from the occupied Syrian village of Majdal Shams who were forcibly transferred during 1967.

Medhat Al-Saleh, who spent 12 years in the Israeli prisons, and was released in 1997, left the occupied Golan to Syria in 1998 and has been living there since then. During his time in Syria, Medhat was a member of the Syrian Parliament for eight years. He was later appointed as the director of the “Occupied Golan Affairs Office” in the Syrian Presidential Office.

Medhat is not the only civilian from the occupied Golan who was assassinated. In 2015, two young brothers: Thaer Mahmoud and Nazih Mahmoud, at the time 31 and 22 years old, were assassinated by an Israeli drone, according to the testimonies of their families and other sources. On 16 May 2021, their young brother Tahrir Mahmoud, 29, was assassinated by an Israeli drone while working in his agricultural land, located near the ceasefire line in the occupied Golan, according to his family and friends’ testimonies.

Although no official statement has yet been issued by the Israeli authorities regarding the assassination of Medhat Al-Saleh, Israeli political analysts* who were interviewed by the Israeli media did not deny this possibility and explained the possible motives and justifications that might have prompted the decision to carry out the assassination.

The targeting of civilians from the occupied Syrian Golan, while they are in their homes or cultivating their lands along the ceasefire line is a blatant violation of the right to life and international law, constitutes a systematic policy, and amounts to a war crime. The provisions and rules of international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions, prohibit the deliberate attack and killing of civilians not participating in hostilities. As such, the Israeli occupation forces must immediately stop the assassination policy of Syrian civilians, which violates international law, spreads terror among civilians, and forces them to abandon their homes.

Such assassinations, which are carried out as extrajudicial and arbitrary executions by deliberate and targeted killing by the occupying power without any judicial or legal procedures, further flagrantly violate the right to life guaranteed by Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966. The right to life is an inherent and non-derogable right, even in times of armed conflict or states of emergency. In this sense, exceptional circumstances, including a state of war or the threat of war, may not be invoked to justify extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. To this end, the international community must urge Israel, as the occupying power in the occupied Syrian Golan, to immediately stop the policy of assassination, and to fulfil its obligations stipulated in international human rights and international humanitarian law. The international community should also urge Israel to ensure transparency and accountability for such violations.

*http://www.sana-syria.org/?p=1499323

* Jacky Hugi, Middle East editor for Israeli news Radio @glzradio - Doron Kadosh, correspondent for military and security affairs - Giora Island, former Chief of Staff for National Security. https://glz.co.il