Israel secret Agent become a defense chief of Syria || Israel Mossad's Most Intelligent Spy

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Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen, commonly known as Eli Cohen, was an Israeli spy. He is best known for his espionage work in 1961–1965 in Syria, where he developed close relationships with the Syrian political and military hierarchy, and became the chief adviser to the Minister of Defense.


Syrian counterintelligence eventually uncovered the spy conspiracy and convicted Cohen under pre-war martial law, sentencing him to death and hanging him publicly in 1965.
Eli Cohen was born in 1924 in Alexandria, Egypt to a devout Mizrahi Jewish and Zionist family. His father had moved there from Aleppo in 1914, He studied at Cairo Farouk University.
His parents and three brothers left for Israel in 1949, but he remained to finish a degree in electronics and to coordinate Jewish and Zionist activities. The government initiated an anti-Zionist campaign in 1951, after a military coup, and Cohen was arrested and interrogated over his Zionist activities. He took part in various Israeli covert operations in the country during the 1950s, although the Egyptian government could never prove his involvement in Operation Goshen, an Israeli operation to smuggle Egyptian Jews out of the country and resettle them in Israel due to increasing hostility in Egypt.
Israel's secret police recruited a sabotage unit of Jewish Egyptian citizens in 1955 which attempted to undermine Egypt's relationships with western powers in the "Lavon Affair". The unit bombed unoccupied American and British installations, expecting that this would be considered the work of Egyptians. Egyptian authorities uncovered the spy ring and sentenced two of the members to death. Cohen had aided the unit and was implicated, but they found no link between him and the perpetrators.
Following state-sponsored anti-Semitic attacks on its Jewish communities, many of them fled or were expelled, and Cohen was forced to leave the country in December 1956. He emigrated to Israel with the assistance of the Jewish Agency. The Israel Defense Forces recruited him in 1957 and placed him in military intelligence, where he became a counter-intelligence analyst. His work bored him and he attempted to join the Mossad, but he was offended when the Mossad rejected him, and he resigned from military counter-intelligence. For the next two years, he worked as a filing clerk in a Tel Aviv insurance office.
In 1959, he married Nadia Majald, born circa 1935, an Iraqi-Jewish immigrant and the sister of author Sami Michael. They had three children—Sophie, Irit, and Shai—and the family settled in Bat Yam.



The Mossad recruited Cohen after Director-General Meir Amit, looking for a special agent to infiltrate the Syrian government, came across his name while looking through the agency's files of rejected candidates, after none of the current candidates seemed suitable for the job. For two weeks Cohen was put under surveillance, and was judged suitable for recruitment and training. Cohen was then informed that the Mossad had decided to recruit him and underwent an intensive six-month course at the Mossad training school. His graduate report stated that he had all the qualities needed to become a katsa, or field agent.
He was then given a false identity as a Syrian businessman who was returning to the country after living in Argentina. To establish his cover, Cohen moved to Buenos Aires in 1961. In Buenos Aires he moved among the Arab community, letting it be known he had large amounts of money to put at the disposal of the Syrian Ba'ath Party. At this time the Ba'ath Party was illegal in Syria but the party seized power in 1963.





Cohen moved to Damascus in February 1962 under the alias Kamel Amin Thaabet. Mossad had carefully planned the tactics that he was to use in building relationships with high-ranking Syrian politicians, military officials, influential public figures, and the diplomatic community.
Cohen continued his social life as he had in Argentina, spending time in cafes listening to political gossip. He also held parties at his home for high-placed Syrian ministers, businessmen, and others. At these parties, Cohen "dispensed free-flowing liquor and prostitutes", and highly placed officials would openly discuss their work and army plans. Cohen would pretend to be drunk to encourage such conversations, to which he paid close attention. He would also lend money to government officials, and many came to him for advice.