Chapter 1
This is a story of a master spy named Eli Cohen, whose feat of achievement stands out amongst spies making him famous.
A spy sent to a foreign land to gather information became famous amongst the political circle that he directly used to communicate with the president of the country. Born with a very sharp mind, he attained such a phenomenal influence, that he was nominated to become the prime of the country he was spying.
Israel, a Jewish republic was born in 1948, surrounded by different Arab countries. There was always a threat from these hostile countries to Israel. Hence Israel takes its internal security very seriously. It has developed its intelligence agency Mossad to counter any threat to the internal security of their country.
Eli Cohen was born in 1924 to a Syrian mother and Jewish father in Egypt. Jewish people used to live in different parts of the world during that time as Israel was not born. After the birth of Israel, Jews from all over the world migrated towards Israel. Eli’s parents migrated to Israel. But Eli did not join them; he resided back at Egypt to complete his education.
The political atmosphere of Egypt was rather toxic for Jews during 1956. Eli Cohen joins his parents in Israel in February 1957. He marries an Iraqi Jew named Nadia, and the couple had three children. He started looking for work in Israel.
He was recruited by the Israel defence forces as a help desk. The job bored him, and he applied for a job in Mossad, as serving the country was utmost in his mind. Mossad rejects him as he was very reckless and the job applied by him demanded more caution.
Chapter 2
Eli had strong command over different languages like English, Hebrew, French and Arabic with a fluent accent. Agents of Mossad kept him under surveillance and monitored his activities. Mossad chief, Meir Amit was looking for agents that can be sent to Syria for espionage in the early 1960s.
None of the candidates was fitting the norms. So he starts looking at the rejected candidates, the profile of Eli Cohen suited him the most. Agents were already keeping a close eye on this Arabic speaking Jew and later recruited him as an agent.
Eli Cohen was very enthusiastic about joining Mossad. He was provided training in all kinds of espionage activities and he overcame every hurdle. A few months later, he was provided with a new identity of a businessman and sent to Zurich, where he establishes his business. Later he flew to Argentina.
In Argentina, Eli Cohen was known as Kamel Amin Thaabet. He purchased a luxury villa in Buenos Aires and started his business dealing with the export-import of clothes and furniture. The main objective of his business setup was to make friends with the officials of the Syrian Embassy. There was an intense political situation in Syria during that period.
Chapter 3
Kamel started making friendship with the Syrian officials present in Embassy by supplying them furniture. As his mother was from Syria, he was able to make friends with officials of the Syrian Embassy easily. He used to throw large parties at his home where officials from the Syrian Embassy attended frequently.
Amin Al-Hafiz, was a powerful military man, working in the Syrian Embassy as a military attaché. Kamel used to visit Syrian Embassy frequently, and made friends with Amin Al-Hafiz. Their friendship grew stronger with time becoming very close friends.
Syria was under political turmoil, under this circumstance, Amin Al-Hafiz returns to Syria. A coup happens in Syria and Amin Al-Hafiz becomes the new president of Syria on 27th July 1963.
Mossad now sends Kamel to Syria to expand his business as an Argentinean citizen. In Syria, he establishes himself as a big businessman from Argentina dealing in furniture and clothes. He buys a house for himself near the military headquarters in Damascus. His main objective was to obtain detailed military information about Syria and inform Israel.
Chapter 4
Kamel regularly invited military officials in his lavish parties. He was also a friend of President Amin Al-Hafiz, so he commanded a lot of respect from different officials and his influence among the military was on the rise.
He started gathering more and more information from military officials. Those military officials did not attend his parties, were honey-trapped by him using many of his girlfriends to shelve out military secrets.
He was known amongst all the top military officials. He used to supply furniture to the defence ministry, finance ministry, information and broadcasting ministry, thus making friends with the top officials in those ministries.
Israel knew that Arab countries during that period could initiate an attack anytime. So they wanted to know the exact location of the Syrian military positions and the kind of ammunitions around.
Jordan collaborated with Syria and tried to divert the main flow of the Jordan River over Syria. The information related to this was provided by Kamel resulting in Israel bombing the plant. This alerted the Syrian government about a mole in the government.
Golan Heights was a strategically placed location in Syria that could watch over Israel forces and was a vulnerable area. Israel wanted detailed information about military deployment in this area. But this area was heavily protected and secured by the military and no one was allowed to venture close. Kamel started gathering information about this area.
Chapter 5
Once during his informal meeting with military officials, Kamel stated an idea, that he would plant eucalyptus trees throughout the Golan Heights for the benefit of the military, further suggesting that planting eucalyptus trees would serve as a camouflage for the army. He was also willing to fund this planting from himself. Military readily agreed to his proposal.
Kamel was permitted to visit the military installation in Golan Heights. He saw all the military installations and prepared a map. He planted eucalyptus trees in such a way that they revealed a map of the military establishment.
Kamel’s clout of influence had grown to such a point that he was given an offer to become the deputy defence minister of Syria, which was humbly rejected by Kamel.
The Syrian president also provided a proposal to Kamel, to become the prime minister of the country and help him assisting the government of Syria. Kamel replied that he is good as a businessman and did not have the intention of joining politics.
Countries from Arab world attacked Israel, it was due to the hard efforts of Kamel intelligence gathering that, Israel was able to capture more than half of Golan Heights from Syria within six days and also thwart back the Arab attack within the same time.
Syria was surprised, by the accuracy of the attack. They knew that there was a mole in the military that provided all the vital information to Israel. Kamel used to transmit the messages back to Israel using an advance transmitter.
Syria launched an investigation under a new intelligence commander Ahmed Al Suweidani. Kamel wanted to return to Israel, but Intelligence officers suggested him to stay back for the last assignment.
Chapter 6
In search of the mole in the military establishment, Syria decided to take help of KGB which is the intelligence branch of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a friend of Syria as America was a supporting Israel, so they accepted the offer to help Syria identifying the mole.
Kamel was unaware of this development and felt secured due to his high reach and popularity. KGB started to find the way of transmitting the information and was certain that the information was sent through some electronic transmission mechanism outside of Syria.
KGB deployed a new more advanced signal tracking device and blanked out all the military transmission to track the radio signals. One night, Kamel was sitting in his luxury apartment and was transmitting messages using radio signals to Israel unaware that he was been tracked.
KGB was able to track Kamel’s house and ascertain that signals were getting transmitted from this house and intercepted the conversation. Immediately commandos surround his house and infiltrate inside. They caught Kamel red-handed transmitting information.
Chapter 7
Kamel alias Eli Cohen was arrested. His closeness to military officials and his links to the president did not help him as KGB had adequate proof of his involvement; they also had the recorded conversation of his messages to Israel.
For a month Eli Cohen was tortured brutally to give out information regarding his activities. Eli kept quiet and did not reveal any information. All his fingernails were ripped out during this process. The military court of Syria, passed a judgement to hang Eli Cohen, publicly.
The news of his arrest reached Israel. Israel approached America, and other countries along with the UN, to release him on humanitarian ground. But Syria was adamant to punish him.
On May 18th 1965, Kamel elias Eli Cohen was executed publicly in front of a large crowd by hanging him. His body hung there for almost 8 hours wrapped in slogans like a gift from the Arab world to Israel. Israel requested Syria to hand over his body for performing last rites, but Syria declined to return his body.
A few years later, agents from Mossad tried to smuggle back the body of their crucial agent, but the plot was discovered and Eli Cohen’s body was shifted to an unknown place. The political turmoil in Syria is prevalent even today and nobody seems to remember about the body of Eli Cohen.
Israel always remembers Eli Cohen as their hero, several parks and schools are named after him. Recently their agents were able to recover back the watch worn by him. They placed the watch in a museum.
A few days later this watch was handed over to his wife Nadia. Eli Cohen was a great spy who always stood by his country and undertook dangerous missions, thus saving his country several times.
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