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PERSON FILE · 26 December 1924 – 18 May 1965

Eli Cohen

Egyptian-born Israeli agent who lived in Damascus from 1962 as a returning émigré businessman, cultivated Syria's Ba'athist elite, and was caught at his transmitter in January 1965 and publicly hanged.

1924–1965

3 min read · 5 sources, 1 primary

Portrait: Eli Cohen, the Israeli agent who lived in Damascus as Kamel Amin Thabet. Unknown author. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

A 1979 CIA survey of Israel's intelligence services, written for internal use, chose two cases to illustrate how Israel ran "deep cover illegal operations" against its Arab neighbors. One was Wolfgang Lotz in Cairo. The other was Eli Cohen in Damascus, who the survey noted was caught partly because he was sending by hand Morse and "had been on the air for an hour" when the Syrians broke in1.

Alexandria

Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen was born in Alexandria on 26 December 1924 to a family that had come from Aleppo in Syria. He grew up speaking Arabic and French and was active in Zionist work among Egypt's Jews. His parents and brothers left for Israel in 1949; he stayed3,4.

In the early 1950s he was arrested and questioned by Egyptian security and released for lack of evidence. Accounts differ on how close he was to the Israeli sabotage network that Egypt broke up in 1954 in what became the Lavon affair. After the Suez war he was expelled with other Alexandrian Jews and reached Israel in February 19573,4,5.

The making of Kamel Amin Thabet

Israeli intelligence first turned him down, and he worked for a time as a clerk and accountant in Tel Aviv. In 1960, with tension rising on the Syrian border, he was approached again and accepted. He trained in radio, cipher work and the Syrian dialect of Arabic, which differed from his native Egyptian speech3,4.

His legend was Kamel Amin Thabet, a Syrian-born businessman whose family had emigrated to Argentina. The 1979 CIA survey says he took the identity of a real man who had died. In 1961 he lived in Buenos Aires, mixing with Syrian émigrés and letting it be known he had money to invest at home. In February 1962 he moved to Damascus and rented a flat in the Abu Rummaneh district, near government and military buildings1,3,4.

Damascus, 1962–1965

In Damascus he entertained officers and officials, lent money and listened. The Ba'ath Party took power in March 1963, and several of its figures were among his acquaintances. He sent reports by radio and courier and returned secretly to Israel three times, including in November 1964, when he told his handlers he feared discovery and wanted to come home. He was asked to go back once more3,4,1.

His reporting included Syrian positions on the Golan Heights, which he toured with Syrian officers, and Syria's project to divert the headwaters of the Jordan River, whose earthworks and equipment Israeli forces later attacked3,4.

Capture and execution

In January 1965 Syrian counterintelligence, with Soviet direction-finding equipment and advisers, imposed a period of radio silence and listened for transmitters still on the air. On 24 January officers broke into Cohen's flat while he was sending4,3,1.

A military tribunal tried him and sentenced him to death. Israel organized appeals for clemency through foreign governments and the Vatican; Syria refused them. He was hanged in public in Marjeh Square, Damascus, on 18 May 1965, and his body was never returned to Israel4,3,1.

Israel's own files on the case stayed closed for decades. In January 2012 the IDF and Defense Establishment Archives released more than 200 pages drawn from intelligence holdings, including the trial protocols, the death sentence and Syrian press coverage, translated by Military Intelligence staff2.

The CIA survey placed him alongside Lotz as Israel's model of the illegal: an officer living under a false nationality, without diplomatic cover, whose only link home was his radio1.

Key dates

  1. February 1957 Arrives in Israel after being expelled from Egypt following the Suez war.
  2. 1960 Recruited by Israeli intelligence for a deep-cover mission against Syria.
  3. 1961 Builds his cover as Kamel Amin Thabet among Syrian émigrés in Buenos Aires.
  4. February 1962 Settles in Damascus.
  5. November 1964 On his last visit home, tells his handlers he fears exposure.
  6. 24 January 1965 Syrian security forces break into his flat during a radio transmission.
  7. 18 May 1965 Publicly hanged in Marjeh Square, Damascus.

Sources

  1. CIA Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services (March 1979), Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Operations, Counterintelligence Staff (via National Security Archive) (1979-03).
  2. Other Our man in Damascus: Eli Cohen of blessed memory (exhibition), IDF and Defense Establishment Archives, Israel Ministry of Defense (archived copy).
  3. Other Eli Cohen, Jewish Virtual Library.
  4. Wikipedia Eli Cohen, Wikipedia.
  5. Wikipedia Lavon affair, Wikipedia.
  6. Wikipedia English Wikipedia article (used for cross-checking).

Elsewhere in the files

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