Israeli spy Eli Cohen in Syria in the 1960s. (Israel’s Prime Minister Office)
The Mossad intelligence service has acquired the entirety of the Syrian intelligence archive on Israeli spy Eli Cohen in a covert operation, the Office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on May 18, which marked the 60th anniversary of Cohen’s public execution in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The announcement was made during a ceremony in which Netanyahu and Mossad Director David Barnea presented the materials to Cohen’s widow, Nadia Cohen.
In a statement, the premier’s office described the operation as a “historic” achievement and said that it was carried out with help of a foreign intelligence agency.
The archive included some 2,000 documents related to Cohen, including handwritten letters from the spy to his family, proof of communications between him and senior Syrian officials, photos taken during his years undercover in the country. It also included personal belongings to Cohen, like the keys to his Damascus apartment.
Extensive handwritten notes collected from his home by Syrian intelligence, including missions assigned to him by the Mossad, as well as the original court document sentencing the spy to death, were a part of the archive presented by Netanyahu.
The spy’s original will and testament, drafted by him just hours before he was hanged in Damascus, was also retrieved by the Mossad.
Interestingly, Syrian intelligence also kept a folder titled “Nadia Cohen,” containing surveillance records tracking Cohen’s widow and her efforts to secure international intervention, including letters she sent to world leaders and the former Syrian president pleading for his release.
Cohen, born in Egypt to a Jewish family, joined the Mossad in the early 1960s and infiltrated the top echelons of Syria’s political leadership under the alias Kamel Amin Thaabet. Israel claims that the intelligence obtained by him over four years of undercover operations in Syria played a key role in Israel’s success in the 1967 Six Day War, particularly in the occupation of the Golan Heights.
The spy was eventually captured by Syrian intelligence, reportedly with technical help from the Soviets. He was tried and executed for espionage on May 18 of 1965. Syria refused to return his body, which remains missing to this day.
Barnea called the recovery of the spy’s archive “another step in advancing the investigation to locate the burial place of our man in Damascus.”
“We will continue to work to locate and return all the missing, the fallen and the kidnapped,” he added.
From his side, Netanyahu said that the archive “will educate generations, and expresses our tireless commitment to returning all of our missing persons, prisoners of war and hostages.”
The announcement came exactly a week after the Israeli Defense Forces and Mossad said that they had recovered the remains of Sergeant First Class Zvi Feldmanin, a tanker who went missing in the battle of Sultan Yacoub in 1982 in Lebanon, during a special operation in the “heart of Syria”. Some reports from last week revealed that Israel was also making efforts to retrieve the remains of Cohen.
It is still unclear if the recent Israeli operations in Syria were the result of the ongoing direct talks with the country’s Islamist-led Interim Government. This can’t be ruled out.
It’s worth noting that Syria intelligence was completely dissolved after the fall of the Assad regime. Thousands of intelligence officers, including those who worked on counter-intelligence, were left to meet their fate, which likely provided the Mossad with an unprecedented opportunities.
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some years back, rt, did a video exposé on how a soviet intelligence officer tracked this cur through electronic eavesdropping. took some time, but they got him. hanged him in a public square. to read that an unnamed intelligence service has helped the child killers in acquiring syrian intelligence documents doesn’t make the grade. this platform should have named which service, or is it too embarrassing / humiliating to do such.
the spy honored in hasbara history ? now his memory is used as a tool of indoctrination . now jewish children will have more propaganda to grow up with . he will become amplified as greater than moses