The Mossad (Israel’s external security service) has brought to Israel approximately 2,500 original documents, photographs, and personal effects belonging to famed Israeli spy Eli Cohen—retrieved from the official Syrian archives six decades after his execution in Damascus.
The unprecedented mission, carried out in coordination with an allied foreign intelligence agency, marks a historic moment in Israel’s ongoing effort to preserve and honor the legacy of one of its most celebrated intelligence operatives.
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The operation was revealed exactly 60 years to the day since Cohen was publicly hanged in a Damascus square in 1965. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad Director David Barnea presented several of the recovered items, including Cohen’s handwritten final will, to his widow, Nadia Cohen, in a special ceremony in Jerusalem.
“The Eli Cohen archive, which was brought in a special effort, will educate generations, and expresses the unwavering commitment to bring back home all of our missing, captives and hostages,” Netanyahu said, calling Cohen “the greatest intelligence agent in the annals of the state.”
The archive includes Cohen’s letters to his family in Israel, photographs of him during his undercover operations, Syrian intelligence reports from his interrogation, and a trove of personal items—among them keys to his Damascus apartment, forged passports, and diaries documenting Mossad missions to surveil Syrian military installations, including in Quneitra.