Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen (‎; ‎; 26 December 1924 – 18 May 1965) was an Egyptian-born Israeli spy. He is best known for his espionage work in Syria between 1961 and 1965, where he developed close relationships with the Syrian political and military hierarchy.

Though he was initially successful, Cohen's activity became increasingly risky and he expressed a sense of impending danger to Mossad in 1964. A year later, his true allegiance was uncovered by Syrian intelligence and he was convicted by the Syrian government under pre-war martial law. After being sentenced to death, he was publicly hanged in Damascus in May 1965. The incident contributed to the sharp escalation of hostilities between Israel and Syria just before the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.

Cohen is highly regarded in Israel, with several streets and roads being named after him.

Biography

Early life

Cohen was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to a Syrian-Jewish family. His father had immigrated from Aleppo in the Ottoman Empire in 1914. Deeply committed to Judaism, Cohen had planned in his youth to become a rabbi with guidance from Alexandria's Chief Rabbi , but the city's yeshiva soon closed down, prompting him to pursue higher education at Cairo University. A staunch Zionist, he helped Israel evacuate the Egyptian Jewish community by assisting Israeli intelligence throughout Egypt. He was also fluent in five languages: Arabic, Hebrew, English, French, and Spanish.

At the onset of the Jewish exodus from the Muslim world, which began concurrently with the Arab–Israeli conflict, Cohen's parents and three brothers immigrated to Israel in 1949, but he stayed behind to complete his degree and also to help consolidate Zionist efforts among Egypt's Jewish community. Prior to the 1952 Egyptian revolution, he was arrested and interrogated by Egyptian authorities, who were becoming suspicious of his activities.

Nonetheless, he continued to engage in various Israeli covert efforts in Egypt throughout the 1950s, although the Egyptian government could never prove his involvement in Operation Goshen, by which the Israeli government smuggled a significant number of Egypt's Jews out of the country and resettled them in Israel. Cohen is also said to have aided Egyptian Jews who were taking part in what would become known as the Lavon Affair, by which Israel sought to sabotage Egypt's relationship with the Western world. Two members of the spy ring were caught and sentenced to death, but the Egyptian government was unable to find a link between Cohen and the perpetrators. In 1959, he married Nadia Majald (born ), an Iraqi-born Jew with whom he would have three children (Sophie, Irit, and Shai) after settling down in Bat Yam. Through this marriage, Cohen became the brother-in-law of Israeli author Sami Michael.

Enlistment with Mossad

The Israel Defense Forces recruited him in 1957 and placed him in military intelligence, where he became a counter-intelligence analyst and a translator.

Espionage in Syria

Cohen was then given a false identity as a Syrian businessman who was returning to the country after living in Argentina. To establish his cover, Cohen moved to Buenos Aires in 1961. In Buenos Aires he moved among the Arab community, letting it be known he had large amounts of money to put at the disposal of the Syrian Ba'ath Party. At this time the Ba'ath Party was illegal in Syria but the party seized power in 1963.thumb|Cohen () at the [[Golan Heights]]

thumb|Cohen at his Damascus home in 1963

Cohen moved to Damascus in February 1962 under the alias Kamel Amin Thabet () and lived in Al Mahdi Ibn Barakeh Street of the Abu Rummaneh neighbourhood, an area which contained various embassies and government buildings, including the Air Force Intelligence Directorate. Mossad had carefully planned the tactics that he was to use in building relationships with high-ranking Syrian politicians, military officials, influential public figures, and the diplomatic community.

Cohen provided an extensive amount and wide range of intelligence data for the Israeli Army between 1961 and 1965. He sent intelligence to Israel by radio, secret letters, and occasionally in person; he secretly travelled to Israel three times. Cohen made repeated visits to the southern frontier zone, providing photographs and sketches of Syrian positions. He also learned of a secret plan to create three successive lines of bunkers and mortars; the Israel Defense Forces would otherwise have expected to encounter only a single line. Cohen was able to find out that the Syrians planned to divert the Jordan River headwaters in an attempt to deprive Israel of water resources, providing information to Israeli forces that enabled them to destroy the equipment prepared for the task during the "War over Water". It is claimed that the intelligence that Cohen gathered before his arrest was an important factor in Israel's success in the Six-Day War, although some intelligence experts have argued that the information he provided about the Golan Heights fortifications was also readily available from ground and aerial reconnaissance.

A 2018 article published in Newsweek by Ronen Bergman excerpted from Bergman's book Rise and Kill First, says that Eli Cohen located Alois Brunner, a former Nazi official and Holocaust perpetrator suspected of living in Syria, and relayed the information to an Israeli intelligence unit that subsequently sent letter bombs to Brunner, causing him to lose an eye in 1961 and the fingers of his left hand in 1980 when the parcels blew up in his hands.

Discovery and death

Following the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, newly appointed Syrian Intelligence Colonel Ahmed Suidani disliked Cohen and did not trust figures close to the Second Syrian Republic. In November 1964, Cohen expressed fear of discovery to the Mossad on his last secret visit to Israel to pass on intelligence and to witness the birth of his third child, and stated that he wished to terminate his assignment in Syria. Despite this, however, Israeli intelligence asked him to return one more time to Syria. Before leaving, Cohen assured his wife that it would be his last trip before he returned home permanently. but the Syrians refused. Nadia Cohen attempted to appeal for clemency at the Syrian Embassy in Paris but was turned away. Cohen wrote in his final letter on 15 May 1965:

Monthir Maosily, the former bureau chief of Hafez al-Assad, claimed in August 2008 that the Syrians had buried him three times to stop the remains from being taken back to Israel via a special operation. Syrian authorities have repeatedly denied family requests for the remains. Cohen's brothers Abraham and Maurice led a campaign to return his remains; Maurice died in 2006, and Nadia now leads it. The press announced on 5 July 2018 that Cohen's wristwatch had been retrieved from Syria. His widow mentioned that the watch was up for sale months earlier, and Mossad managed to obtain it. Mossad director Yossi Cohen presented it to Cohen's family in a ceremony, and it is currently on display at Mossad headquarters.

On 18 May 2025, marking the 60th anniversary of Cohen's execution, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office announced that approximately 2,500 documents and personal items belonging to Cohen were retrieved from Syria in a covert Mossad operation. The collection, constituting the entirety of the Syrian archive on Cohen, included handwritten letters to his family, evidence of communications with senior Syrian officials, photographs from his time undercover, personal belongings such as the keys to his Damascus apartment, and his original will written hours before his execution. The items were subsequently given to his widow.

Legacy

Cohen is regarded as a national hero in Israel, and many streets and neighbourhoods have been named after him. Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann, Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur, and several Mossad operatives all attended his son's bar mitzvah in 1977. A memorial stone has been erected to Cohen in the Garden of the Missing Soldiers in Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.

John Shea played Cohen in the television film The Impossible Spy (1987), and Sacha Baron Cohen played him in the Netflix miniseries The Spy (2019).

The Eli Cohen Museum, centred on Cohen's life and career, opened in Herzliya on 12 December 2022 and displays Cohen's wristwatch.

The Israeli settlement Eliad in the Golan Heights is named after him.

References

  • Cohen's widow asks for his remains to be returned Israel National News
  • PM's speech at the ceremony marking 40 years since the death of Eli Cohen Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • Our man in Damascus: Eli Cohen of blessed memory, Exhibition in the IDF & Defense Establishment Archives
  • The Eli Cohen Files
  • Eli Cohen, moments after the execution (part 1)
  • Eli Cohen, moments after the execution (part 2), containing footage from the Associated Press archives, 1965
  • Eli Cohen Mossad Spy @J-grit.com