In a secret operation, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has managed to bring back from Syria some 2,500 documents and personal belongings of the famous Israeli spy Eli Cohen
The announcement was made on Sunday, exactly 60 years after Cohen’s execution in Damascus on May 18, 1965.
The historic operation was revealed during a ceremony in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief David Barnea handed over the items to Cohen’s widow, Nadia Cohen.
The entire Syrian intelligence archive on Eli Cohen has been recovered, with the help of a foreign intelligence agency.
Items recovered include handwritten letters from Cohen to his family, evidence of communications between him and Syrian authorities, photographs taken during his years undercover in Syria, forged passports and even the keys to the apartment he used in Damascus, which were confiscated by Syrian intelligence when he was arrested.
Also found were Cohen’s original will, written just hours before his execution, as well as detailed notes made by Syrian intelligence, which included tasks given to him by the Mossad, such as monitoring targets and gathering information on Syrian military bases in Quneitra.
Other documents include Cohen’s death warrant and a letter that allowed Rabbi Nissim Andabo, the leader of Damascus’ Jewish community at the time, to accompany Cohen in his final hours.
A “Nadia Cohen” dossier was also recovered, containing surveillance records on Cohen’s widow and her attempts to gain international support, including letters sent to world leaders and the Syrian president urging her husband’s release.
According to the Israeli government, the operation was the culmination of decades of efforts by the Mossad to find any information about Eli Cohen, including clues about his fate and burial site.
David Barnea said the recovery was another step toward finding where Cohen was buried in Damascus.
“We will continue working to locate and bring back all the missing, fallen and abducted,” he said.
Netanyahu stressed that the archive “will educate generations” and reflects Israel’s commitment to searching for its missing, prisoners of war and hostages.
Who was Eli Cohen?
Born in Egypt to a Jewish family, Eli Cohen joined the Mossad in the early 1960s.
Using the false name Kamel Amin Thaabet, he infiltrated the highest circles of the Syrian government.
The information he gathered over four years was crucial to Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, especially in the conquest of the Golan Heights.
Cohen was captured, tried and executed by the Syrian government for espionage on May 18, 1965. His body has never been found, despite continued efforts by Israel.
Other recent operations
The recovery of Cohen’s items comes a week after another operation by the Mossad and the Israel Defense Forces, which brought back the remains of Sergeant Zvi Feldman, who went missing in the battle of Sultan Yacoub in the First Lebanon War in 1982. The body was recovered from an area of “”central Syria.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December, Israeli forces have been deployed at nine points in southern Syria, mainly in a UN-controlled border zone.
Published in 05/18/2025 22h42
Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption.
Reference article:
| Geoprocessing Drone Systems HPC |
| ERP and CRM Systems Mobile Systems AI |