I24NEWS
Mossad retrieves trove of documents, belongings of executed spy Eli Cohen
May 18, 2025

Some 2,500 documents, photos, and belongings of executed spy Eli Cohen were retrieved from Syria in a special Mossad operation, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Sunday. The trove was recovered due to a secret, complex operation in cooperation with the official Syrian archive, which held thousands of classified items ever since his capture and subsequent execution in Damascus’s al-Marjeh Square in 1965. The items included the keys to his Damascus apartment, forged passports, and photos he took during his espionage, particularly of senior Syrian officials. He also left behind notebooks and diaries that were seized by Syria’s intelligence service. The announcement came 60 years to the day after his execution, with the items presented in the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad Director David Barnea, and the widow of the late Eli Cohen, Mrs. Nadia Cohen. Included was Cohen’s will, which he wrote hours before his execution, and of which only a copy has been publicly revealed so far. READ MORE

NDTV WORLD All About Eli Cohen, Popular Mossad Spy Publicly Hanged By Syria 60 Years Ago In 2019, Netflix released The Spy, a limited series dramatising Eli Cohen’s years-long undercover operation in Syria. Once upon a time in Damascus, Kamal Amin Thaabet moved freely among Syria’s elite, trusted and unseen. But behind the carefully built persona was Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy feeding crucial secrets to his homeland. Sixty years ago, his double life ended with a public execution. This week, Israel retrieved thousands of items linked to Cohen from a covert Syrian archive.