Posted on 05/24/25
| News Source: i24
The personal effects of Eli Cohen, the storied Mossad spy executed in Damascus in 1965, were transferred to Israel in early May by helicopter from the Druze majority town of Suwayda in southern Syria. i24NEWS learned further details about the handover, reported here for the first time.
While Israel announced last week the retrieval of the trove of documents, photographs and personal possessions relating to Cohen, it did not reveal key details about the operation, merely saying that Mossad operatives had worked with an unspecified foreign intelligence agency to secure the material.
Cohen, who was publicly executed in 1965 after infiltrating Syria’s political elite, is hailed among the Jewish state's greatest heroes for uncovering military secrets that proved instrumental in Israel's stunning six-day routing of Syrian, Egyptian and Jordanian armies in in the June 1967 war.
i24NEWS can now reveal that a senior Syrian security official in the town was involved in the operation.
On May 2, reports were coming out of Syria of an Israeli helicopter airdropping aid to the residents of Suwayda; i24NEWS understands from a Druze source that this helicopter carried Cohen's personal effects to Israel.
The transfer of the archive to Israel represents a benevolent gesture, a signal of goodwill to Israel and the United States from Syria's leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who personally greenlit the handover.
According to the official, the talks between Israel and Syria are more advanced and progressing at a faster clip than reported in the media.