A covert operation carried out by the Mossad has retrieved approximately 2,500 original documents, photographs and personal items belonging to Israel’s most famous spy.
Eli Cohen’s espionage career stands as one of the most remarkable chapters in Israeli intelligence history. Born in Alexandria to Syrian Jewish parents, he possessed a natural gift for languages, speaking Arabic, English, and French fluently. After receiving initial espionage training in Israel in 1955, he returned to Egypt, only to be expelled along with other Jews in the wake of the Suez Crisis. He subsequently settled in Israel in 1957, working as a translator and accountant before being recruited again by Israeli intelligence in 1960.
In 1961, Cohen was dispatched to Buenos Aires by the Mossad under the alias Kamal Amin Thaabet, posing as an expatriate Syrian businessman. There, he methodically built relationships within the Syrian expatriate community, including future Syrian president Amin al-Hafez. These connections proved invaluable when Cohen relocated to Damascus in 1962, where he rapidly ascended into the highest circles of Syrian society and government.
His influence peaked during the 1963 Ba’athist coup, when several of his Argentine contacts seized power. So trusted was Cohen that al-Hafez reportedly considered him for deputy minister of defense. He attended classified military briefings and was granted access to strategic Syrian fortifications in the Golan Heights, all while transmitting crucial intelligence back to Israel.
Despite repeated warnings from his handlers, Cohen maintained regular radio transmission schedules. Syrian counterintelligence eventually traced his signal and arrested him in January 1965. Following a military trial, he was publicly hanged in Damascus’s Marjeh Square four months later.
Among the items recovered and made public on Sunday include documents outlining specific intelligence missions Cohen received from the Mossad, comprising surveillance assignments and directives to gather intelligence on Syrian military bases in Quneitra, which proved invaluable to the IDF during the Six Day War.
Another document reveals that Syrian authorities permitted Rabbi Nissim Indibo, then head of Damascus’s Jewish community, to minister to Cohen according to Jewish tradition before his execution.
Other items retrieved were the keys to his Damascus apartment, passports and false documentation he used during his mission, and numerous photographs showing Cohen with senior Syrian government and military officials.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad Director David Barnea have presented several of the recovered items to Cohen’s widow, Nadia, including her husband’s original handwritten will, penned just hours before his execution in Damascus. Until now, only a copy of this document had been available.
“Eli Cohen was a legend,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said during the ceremony. “In the test of time, he has been revealed as the greatest intelligence agent in the annals of the state; his heroism and his activity contributed to our historic victory in the Six Day War.”
Despite decades of intelligence work, the location of Cohen’s remains continues to elude Israeli authorities. To keep his remains out of Israeli hands, Syrian authorities have purportedly moved Cohen’s body multiple times over the years.
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