Israel recovers spy Eli Cohen's archive from Syria 60 years after he was hanged

Israel announced on Sunday that it had brought back the official Syrian archive on Israeli spyEli Cohen, which includes around 2,500 documents, photographs, and personal items. Cohen was executed in Damascus in 1965. "In a complex covert operation by the Mossad, in cooperation with a strategic partner service, the official Syrian archive on Eli Cohen was brought to Israel," Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement, referring to Israel’s external intelligence agency."The trove contains thousands of items that had been kept under tight security by Syrian intelligence for decades," the Israeli PM's office added in the statement. The announcement was made during a ceremony marking 60 years since Cohen’s public execution on May 18, 1965.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mossad director David Barnea presented the materials to Cohen’s widow, Nadia Cohen, The Times of Israel reported.The thousands of recovered items made up the full Syrian intelligence archive on Eli Cohen, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said, describing the operation as a "historic" achievement. The covert mission was carried out with the assistance of a foreign intelligence agency, as noted in the statement.

The archive includes Cohen’s handwritten letters to his family, documents showing communication between him and Syrian officials, photos from his time in Syria, and forged passports. Also recovered were personal items such as the keys to his apartment in Damascus, which were taken by Syrian intelligence when he was arrested.

Cohen’s original will, written shortly before he was executed, was among the items retrieved.Also included in the archive were many handwritten notes collected from Cohen’s residence by Syrian intelligence, which outlined the assignments he received from Mossad. These included instructions to observe specific individuals and gather intelligence on Syrian military facilities in the region of Quneitra. The original document that sentenced Cohen to death and a letter that allowed Rabbi Nissim Andabo, then head of the Jewish community in Damascus, to be with Cohen in his final hours, were also returned. Cohen had built strong connections with senior political and military figures in Syria during a four-year intelligence mission before being discovered by Syrian authorities. He was publicly executed in Damascus on May 18, 1965. Eli Cohen's life was portrayed in the Netflix miniseries The Spy, with British actor Sacha Baron Cohen playing the lead role.