Most effective method to monitor directory for deleted files

I am running Oracle Linux 8.9 and trying to figure out the best method to monitor an important directory for file deletions. We do have Datadog and Solarwinds but apparently neither are good at detecting file deletions on Linux. Don't understand it but anyways I am tasked with figuring out how to monitor on file deletion events. I came across auditd which appears to be the right path to go down, let me know if there is a better alternative. So I created the file_delete.rules file in /etc/audit/rules.d with the content

-w <directory_I_am_monitoring> -p wa -k file_deletions