The intelligence he collected contributed to Israel's victory over Syria in 1967 and the conquest of the Golan Heights. Eli Cohen died before seeing how the confidential information he passed to Mossad played a crucial role during the Six-Day War.
Unmasked, he was hanged in Damascus on May 18, 1965, where for several years he had developed close relationships with the political and military hierarchy. He even became a senior advisor to the Syrian Defense Minister. Eli Cohen's story inspired the series “The Spy” on Netflix. In Israel, a museum is dedicated to him in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.
But since then, Israel has been trying for years to find and repatriate the remains of the legendary spy. While the Assad clan was overthrown, two Palestinian officials told AFP on Monday that they had been contacted to help Israel locate the remains in Syria of Eli Cohen and an Israeli soldier missing since 1982.
An intermediary via Moscow
“Contact has been established with us through mediators so that we can help find the remains of an Israeli soldier who has been missing since 1982,” a Damascus-based official told AFP. According to this source, who asked not to be identified, “contacts are also underway to determine the place where Israeli agent Eli Cohen was buried.”
Another Palestinian official, based outside Syria and who also requested anonymity, said mediation was being done through the Russians and with Palestinian officials based abroad.
A watch “recovered” in 2018 in an “enemy country”
In the summer of 2018, Israeli secret services confirmed having recovered the watch worn by Eli Cohen in an “enemy country”. Information had also emerged concerning negotiations between Israel and Russia, a country close to the Assad clan, regarding the return to Israel of other personal objects, even the remains of the spy.
Furthermore, in April 2019, Israel announced the restitution of the remains of soldier Zachary Baumel, missing since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The remains were found by the Russian and Syrian armies, said Russian President Vladimir Putin. Israel then released two prisoners in exchange.
Research in a refugee cemetery south of Damascus
Two other soldiers, Yehouda Katz and Tzvi Feldman, remain missing since the battle between Israeli and Syrian forces at Sultan Yacoub, Lebanon, on June 11, 1982, during which several Israeli soldiers were killed or captured.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Russian forces attempted in the past to exhume graves in the cemetery of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, south of Damascus, in search of the remains of two Israeli soldiers and Eli Cohen.
