From the Liveblog of
Sunday, May 18, 2025
2,500 items belonging to executed spy Eli Cohen recovered from Syria in covert Mossad operation
Some 2,500 documents and personal items belonging to legendary Israeli spy Eli Cohen have been returned to Israel from Syria in a covert operation carried out by the Mossad, the Prime Minister’s Office announces.
The announcement comes on the 60th anniversary of Cohen’s execution in Damascus, on May 18, 1965.
The thousands of items collectively make up the entirety of the Syrian archive on Eli Cohen, the Prime Minister’s Office says.
Among the items recovered are handwritten letters from Cohen to his family, proof of communications between the Israeli spy and senior Syrian officials, and photos taken during his years spent undercover in Syria.
The collection also features a host of Cohen’s personal belongings, including the keys to his Damascus apartment, which were confiscated by Syrian intelligence upon his arrest.
Cohen’s original will, drafted just hours before he was hanged, was also recovered, the Prime Minister’s Office says.
It says that the success of the operation is attributed to the decades-long efforts by the Mossad “to locate every piece of information about Eli Cohen in an attempt to shed light on his fate and burial place.”
Mossad chief David Barnea says that the recovery of the archive is “another step in advancing the investigation to locate the burial place of our man in Damscus.”
“We will continue to work to locate and return all the missing, the fallen, and the kidnapped,” he adds.
Netanyahu, in a statement of his own, says that the recovered archive “will educate generations, and expresses our tireless commitment to returning all of our missing persons, prisoners of war, and hostages.”
Cohen infiltrated the top levels of Syria’s political leadership in the years before the 1967 Six Day War, and the information he obtained is credited with playing a key role in Israel’s stunning success in that war.
He was put on trial and executed by the Syrian government for espionage on May 18, 1965, after he successfully breached the Syrian government under the alias Kamel Amin Thaabet for four years.
His body has never been recovered.
The Times of Israel Community.