Syria publicly executed an Israeli agent for espionage six decades ago. So far, Israel has failed to trace the body, as well as the burial site, of that agent. The Jewish Nation has been trying hard to retrieve the body since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad Regime in Damascus on December 8, 2024. Reports suggest that Mossad Chief David Barney has contacted a number of former officials of the al-Assad Regime in this regard with the help of Russia.

Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen (popularly known as Eli Cohen; December 6, 1924 – May 18, 1965), an Egyptian-born Israeli agent best known for his espionage work in Syria between 1961-65, joined Mossad in 1962. Cohen arrived in Damascus as a businessman with the pseudo name, Kamel Amin Thabet. He, along with his family members, first moved to Argentina in order to gain the trust of the Arabs as a Syrian businessman. He returned to Syria in 1962 and started organising royal banquets in Damascus from time to time. As top Syrian officials used to attend those banquets, Cohen gradually developed close relationships with the political and military hierarchy. He allegedly gathered information about the Syrian military strategy from his guests and secretly sent the information to Tel Aviv!

Cohen’s strategy did not succeed for long as the Russian agents helped Syria to identify his secret radio transmitter. The Mossad agent was arrested immediately and convicted by the Syrian Government under pre-war martial law. After being sentenced to death, Cohen was publicly hanged in Damascus on May 18, 1965.

Since then, Israel has made several attempts to trace Cohen’s body, but failed. According to media reports, Syria has repeatedly changed Cohen’s burial site to evade Israel. On July 5, 2018, Tel Aviv announced that it retrieved Cohen’s wristwatch from Syria. His widow claimed that the watch was up for sale months earlier and Mossad managed to capture it. Yossi Cohen, the then Director of Mossad, presented the watch to Cohen’s family at a ceremony. Currently, it is on display at Mossad headquarters. However, his body remains untraceable.

Israel has started making efforts yet again to get access to Cohen’s body, with Syria going through a turbulent political phase. However, neither Israel nor Syria has issued any statement publicly so far. It may be noted that a thrilling six-episode series has been made on Cohen’s espionage, capture and execution. The series was aired on a popular OTT (Over The Top) platform in 2019.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das