Israel Retrieves Eli Cohen’s Secret Archive from Syria in Covert Operation
Mossad extracts 2,500 documents and personal items of famed spy Eli Cohen via helicopter from southern Syria, signaling renewed secret ties with Damascus.
Watan-In a covert Israeli operation, Eli Cohen’s long-hidden archive was transferred from Syria to Tel Aviv, reportedly with the cooperation of Syrian officials.
The Israeli news site i24NEWS reported that the archive of Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy executed by Syria in 1965, was secretly transferred to Tel Aviv via a helicopter that landed in Sweida, southern Syria.
Citing what it described as a Syrian source, the report stated that the helicopter landed on May 2 and transported Cohen’s archive in a gesture from the Syrian government and transitional President Al-Sharaa to both Israel and the United States. The flight route reportedly avoided Jordanian and Lebanese airspace to maintain secrecy.
The source added that at the time, the helicopter’s presence raised speculation in both Syria and Israel, with rumors that it was delivering weapons and food to the local Druze community or smuggling a Druze religious leader to Israel. However, it has now been revealed that the mission’s true purpose was to extract the archive, secured by a senior Syrian military commander loyal to Al-Sharaa.
The report ties this covert transfer to ongoing positive negotiations between Israel and Syria in Azerbaijan, reportedly brokered by Turkey, and involving direct conversations between former Israeli security officials and Al-Sharaa himself.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously announced that the operation resulted in the recovery of approximately 2,500 documents, photos, and personal belongings from the official Syrian archive on Eli Cohen. The operation, executed by Mossad in collaboration with a partner intelligence agency, was described as “complex and classified.”
The recovered materials include:
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Cohen’s original handwritten will
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Audio recordings
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Interrogation transcripts
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Correspondence with his family
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Photos taken during his mission in Syria
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Forged passports
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Notebooks and daily logs of his Mossad work
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A file on his wife Nadia Cohen, documenting Syrian surveillance during her efforts to secure his release.
A private meeting was held between Netanyahu, Mossad chief David Barnea, and Nadia Cohen, where the archive was presented. Barnea called the operation a “moral achievement” and a step closer to discovering Cohen’s burial site in Damascus.
This symbolic return of Eli Cohen’s archive may also signal a new chapter of behind-the-scenes diplomacy in a region where such gestures are rarely made public.
