The Mossad logo is visible in this illustration taken on May 6, 2025. Photo REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
The Israeli Prime Minister's office announced Sunday that the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence services, had recovered from Syria the official archives of spy Eli Cohen, who was hanged in Damascus on May 18, 1965. "In a secret Mossad operation, the official Syrian archives of Eli Cohen, containing thousands of items, were brought back to Israel," the office stated in a release.
Portrayed by British actor Sacha Baron Cohen in the series "The Spy," Eli Cohen is seen as a hero in Israel. After infiltrating the Syrian regime’s upper echelons, he provided the Israeli military with intelligence that assisted it during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. He was hanged in a public square in Syria in 1965.
According to this release, "about 2,500" of Eli Cohen's items were brought back to Israel, including "documents, photos, and personal effects" collected by Syrian intelligence services after the spy's arrest in January 1965. "Eli Cohen is a legend. Over time, he has emerged as the greatest secret agent in the country's history whose heroism and actions contributed to the historic victory in the Six-Day War" in 1967, stated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to this release. Sixty years after his hanging, Israel is still seeking to retrieve the spy’s remains, whose location remains the subject of various rumors. In the summer of 2018, Israeli intelligence confirmed having recovered his watch in an "enemy country."
Last week, Israel announced that it had repatriated, during a "special operation" carried out "deep within Syria," the body of one of its soldiers killed in Lebanon in 1982.
Since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, ousted from power on December 8 by a coalition of rebels, Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes on Syrian territory targeting military sites, claiming to prevent the arsenal of the previous regime from falling into the hands of new authorities dominated by Islamist groups. Israel has also deployed troops into a U.N.-monitored buffer zone on the Golan Heights and beyond, describing it as a defensive and temporary measure.