In December 1956, the Jewish Agency assisted Eli to deport to Israel in a vessel. Eli himself was not above the spicier part of a spys life either. He had been repeatedly interrogated and tortured. Nadia Cohen attempted to appeal for clemency at the Syrian Embassy in Paris but was turned away. He was stunned by the precision of the Israeli bombing during the 1964 attack. A year later, in 1965, Cohen was caught transmitting over the radio back to Tel Aviv. Qudsi was ousted from power as a result of the March 8 coup, but Hafiz did not take power until months later. Eli Cohen was sent to Syria as an undercover agent, and he turned out to be the greatest spy to date. He is being executed according to the two articles 158 and 159 of the military penal code, and articles 271, 272, and 274 of the general penal code. Employment was not always steady, and he soon had to rely more on Nadia to help support their marriage, which would quickly lead to children. After his execution, a white parchment filled with anti-Zionist writing was put on his body, and he was left hanging for six hours. - From Eli Cohen's last letter to his wife Nadia and his children, written an hour before his execution in Damascus. In the fifties, Israel had launched a project of huge pipeline and canals that would carry a part of the jorden river water to the arid Negev region. The text messages between Khalid and the NZSIS. Also in Episode 5, viewers see Hafiz assume power after demanding the resignation of Syria's then-president, Nazim al-Qudsi. their chief noticed that their decision taken by the government was broadcast to Israel. Eli kept transmitting reports of a military character, top military orders, reports on new weapons to Israel. All these years, I remained faithful to him. one after the other 69 people were arrested. Prior to the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, Cohen was arrested and interrogated over his Zionist activities. I am begging you my dear Nadia not to spend your time in weeping about some thing already passed. A month later, a Syrian officer would say that one of Israel's attack architects had been Eli Cohen, who was in Israel during the battle. They had three children, Sophie, Irit, and Shai. And much of the credit for Israels ability to capture the Golan was due to Eli Cohen, Israels greatest spy. Cohen was born and raised in Egypt and was expelled to Israel in 1956. By 1960, however, Israeli Intelligence was ready to take another look at Eli Cohen. Concentrate on yourself, looking forward for a better future! Nevertheless, Kamal Amin Taabet (Eli Cohen) succeeded in visiting every position. If I wanted something, I called, they put me through to him immediately. With senior staff officers acting as guides, Eli Cohen was provided an in-depth intelligence briefing of monumental proportions. They even photographed Eli on the Golan Heights, looking over into Israel, alongside the most high-ranking Syrian officers. Eli could watch the entrance to the Syrian government officials' guest house. Despite this, however, Israeli intelligence asked him to return to Syria one more time. At Kfar Habad, on July 29, 1977, at the joint Bar Mitzvah for 100 fatherless boys, in the presence of Prime Minister. Sacha Baron Cohen-led limited series "The Spy" which comes out today on Netflix tells the true story of how famed Israeli Mossad agent Eli Cohen went undercover in 1960s Syria. They married in 1959, a month after meeting, and had three children together. Nadia Cohen, widow of executed Israeli spy Eli Cohen, speaks to Channel 2 on September 20, 2016 after Syrian opposition forces release new video showing moments after he was hanged in. [19] He also learned of a secret plan to create three successive lines of bunkers and mortars; the Israel Defense Forces would otherwise have expected to encounter only a single line. In real life, the closeness between Hafiz and Cohen has been disputed by the former president of Syria, who claimed in a 2001 interview with Al Jazeera that they couldn't have met in Buenos Aires because Hafiz was in Moscow until 1962, by which time Cohen had gone undercover as Thaabet in Damascus. The Golan Heights defenses were top-secret and closed only to top military staff. On January 24, 1965, Syrian intelligence broke into his home in the middle of a transmission. I send you my last kisses to you and to the children: Sophie, Irit, and Shaoul, and to the rest of my family, especially my mother. Eli was caught in the act and there was nothing he could do. [8] His most famous achievement was the tour of the Golan Heights in which he collected intelligence on the Syrian fortifications there. According to al-Gamal's version, he saw a photograph in an Arab newspaper at a newspaper stand in Frankfurt's train station that showed Amin Kamel Thabet touring fortifications on the Golan Heights with Syrian officers. he soon became a well-known figure in the Arab circle. For 19 years, Jewish settlements in the north were under constant threat of Syrian guns. The border with Syria was heating up as well. According to his fictional biography, in 1948 the family moved to Argentina, where they opened a successful textile business. Kamal Amin Taabets (Eli Cohen) return to Syria would ostensibly be the fulfillment of a lifelong patriotic dream. According to an unconfirmed but widely believed story, he feigned sympathy for the soldiers exposed to the sun and had trees planted at every position, placed to provide shade. Nadia and 'Mossad' were on bad terms until Meir Dagan was made the agencys chief. In 1949, his parents and three brothers moved to Israel while Eli remained in Egypt to coordinate Jewish and Zionist activities there. Eli Cohen was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on December 26, 1924, the second of eight children in a family of orthodox Jews. At the age of 41, Cohen was hanged in Damascus in front of a crowd of 10,000. They had three childrenSophie, Irit, and Shaiand the family settled in Bat Yam. He was quickly able to infiltrate the highest levels of Syrian society. (Israel GPO), President Reuven Rivlin and Nadia Cohen, at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Mossad super spy Eli Cohen, May 18, 2015. Israel could be the target of an aggressive attack by a larger, better Egyptian army that wanted to avenge its shameful defect in the Israel Independence War. When the Golan was captured in 1967, at almost the end of the Six-Day War, settlers in the north could finally feel relieved. Its waters flow into the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret) and south to the Dead Sea. He was sent to Argentina, where he took on the guise of a businessman, scion of a Syrian family. Eli found out about Syria's secret plan to attack the Israeli defense forces. "I was cooperating with the New Zealand Secret Intelligence Service, in cooperation with the Mossad, in order to help find the remains of the Israeli spy Eli Cohen," he said. Cohen's brothers Abraham and Maurice led a campaign to return his remains; Maurice died in 2006, and Nadia now leads it. In his late teens, Cohen became an ardent Zionist and at the same time, as . "Sophie's. Eli Cohen was born in Egypt in 1924 to Jewish parents, who had migrated to Alexandria from Syria. Khalid al-Hafidh, a Syrian migrant living in Auckland, claims to be the son Amin al-Hafiz, a Syrian leader who presided over the country during Cohen's execution and his subsequent secret burial. you lived with your uncle and worked as a travel agency, later were very successful. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Israeli ambassador, Itzhak Gerberg, would not comment on the report. According to the report, Mossad agents were on their way to Auckland, with one text saying: "Wait for our partners to arrive before making a decision.". In the name of the Syrian Arab people, The Military court has decided in its meeting which was held on Muharram 7th, 1385 - May 8th, 1965 to sentence Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen, a resident of Tel Aviv in Occupied Palestine, to death for committing the following crimes: The crime of disguised entry into a military location. The Spy is streaming globally on Netflix. Years later, in February 2007, a Turkish official confirmed that the government had agreed to look into the matter of returning Eli's remains to his family. In 1954, Egyptian authorities arrested Eli for being a terror suspect. She once called her children and four grandchildren to her home in Herzliya, clicked a photo of them together, and sent it to Assad, congratulating him on the birth of his son, Bashar. In the 1960s, Israel developed a national water carrier which diverted water from the Kinneret into a pipeline that irrigated much of the country and especially Israels arid south. He genuinely fit into life in the Syrian capital, and he was never suspected of being a spy until almost the very end. The husband hunters among the Damascus rich and influential flocked to the handsome Taabet, hoping that their almond eyes, Byzantine beauty, and olive skin would secure a future of wealth and power: He became the most sought-after bachelor in the Syrian capital. He made friends with many of the guests and ended up receiving classified military briefings and visiting Syrian military sites. "The Spy" depicts Egyptian-born Cohen - played by Sacha Baron Cohen - as an ambitious, Arabic-speaking immigrant to Israel who is recruited by Mossad and, overcoming his fears and the strains on his family, infiltrates the Damascus high command by posing as a rich scion of the Syrian diaspora. Israeli spy who was captured and executed in Syria, that enabled them to destroy the equipment prepared for the task, "Israel's Secret Operation to Recover the Watch of a Legendary Spy", "Rumors fly that body of legendary Israeli spy Eli Cohen was found", "Eli Cohen, notre agent "top secret" Damas", "Mossad's master of deception: the astounding true story of Israeli super-spy Eli Cohen", Widow of Israeli spy Eli Cohen: Netflix drama 'raises my blood pressure', "Unending agony for legendary spy Eli Cohen and his widow", "Israel's secret war against Hitler's scientists", "The History of Elie Cohen: An Egyptian Jew who became Israel's greatest spy", "Will Israel's superspy finally rest in peace? Unending Agony for Legendary Spy Eli Cohen and His Widow His first assignment was to infiltrate the Jewish community of Alexandria. Al-Gamal, for his part, adopted the Jewish identity of Jacques Biton and immigrated to Israel from France on the orders of Egyptian intelligence. "This cooperation brings significant benefits to New Zealand's national security, we help them (Mossad), and they help us," they added. Eli Cohen, Israels most famous spy, also happened to be a hopeless romantic. Last year, Israel was able to retrieve Cohens wristwatch from Syria and return it to his family. 'The Spy' Creator Gideon Raff on the True, 'Heartbreaking' Love Story A memorial stone has been erected in the 'Garden of the Missing Soldiers' in Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, to commemorate him. The Golan is not only important for its military significance. The purposes of that visit were to pass on intelligence and to enable him to witness the birth of his third child. Eli Cohen Biography - Facts, Childhood, Family Life & Achievements For more than 50 years, Nadia has fought to have her husbands body returned to Israel. "You know, when I was growing up, I heard a tremendous amount about your husband. Likud MK Eli Cohen Federation of Local Authorities conference in Tel Aviv, December 8, 2022. Scheffeldt, 63, is the widow of Rifa'at al-Gamal, an Egyptian spy who reportedly operated in Israel for a number of years. In Episode 5, Maurice puts the clues together when he covers for the regular analyst that communicates with Cohen using Morse code. She smiles. Nadia wishes to be buried beside Elis grave. Eli had lost his friends, in 1957 he immigrates to Israel. The commenter agrees to the privacy policy of Ynet News and agrees not to submit comments that violate the. It doesnt fit our story but I understand the situation. They observed a period of radio silence, in the hope that any illegal transmissions could be identified. But changes were taking place in the Syrian Government that alarmed Eli. For his loyalties, Hafiz grooms Thaabet to be deputy defense minister in his government. He was interrogated and tortured. [7], 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. After several days, Eli got a new identity as Kamal Amin Tablet, son of Syrian parents, born in Beirut. Thus, he wished to terminate his assignment in Syria. Altogether, he returned to Israel three times between 1962 and 1965. I want him (Yossi Cohen) to clarify what hapepned," said the 84-year-old. Israel desperately tried to have his sentence commuted, and despite requests from world leaders and Pope Paul VI for clemency, Cohen was hanged publicly in May of that year. They had a son, Daniel, and after the Six Day War they celebrated his bar mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. In order to capture the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War, Israeli soldiers had to knock out a number of well-fortified Syrian outposts. in Israel, he found the job of translating weekly and monthly magazines for a man after a few months he was fired. Please use the following structure: example@domain.com, Send me The Times of Israel Daily Edition. Egypt has the strongest of the Arab countries and sworn enamy if Israel with the decision to evacuate Egypt, modern bases, airfield, and huge stores of equipment and war material would fall into the Egyptian army. Unfortunately, Nadia and her family are still waiting to get Elis body and have not made peace with it. he transfers all operations to Mossad, Eli was now Mossad agent. [29] Mossad director Yossi Cohen presented it to Cohen's family in a ceremony, and it is currently on display at Mossad headquarters. The leading figure in the break-in was the head of Syrian Intelligence, Colonel Ahmed Suedani Elis nemesis. He became a confidante of George Saif, high up in the Ministry of Information. Eli visited other Arab friends as Abdel Latif Hassan and his briefcase was full of enthusiastic letters of recommendation. become close friends. His family is now settled in Bat Yam. His training was extensive and exhaustive. Over the years, Nadia has made several efforts to seek a bit of mercy from Syrian officials. He reminded me of my father sometimes, she added. (PMO), Sacha Baron Cohen as Israeli spy Eli Cohen in The Spy (YouTube screenshot), Mossad spy Eli Cohen, executed in Syria in 1965. one evening he met one gentleman, Abdel Latif Hassan, editor in chief of Arab world magazine publish in Argentina. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community. Eli was, however, taken in by 'Mossad' when Director-General Meir Amit was in search of a special agent to infiltrate the Syrian government. [5], His parents and three brothers left for Israel in 1949, but he remained to finish a degree in electronics and coordinate Jewish and Zionist activities. The unit bombed unoccupied American and British installations, expecting that this would be considered the work of Egyptians. He soon became accepted, well-liked, and respected, and made contacts with politicians, diplomats and military officials working out of the Syrian Embassy. Eli was, however, persuaded continuously by Israeli intelligence agencies to return to Syria. He also requested her to remarry so that their children would have a father and she would have a partner. Double Agent's Widow Offers New Take on Eli Cohen Affair
What Channel Is The Lightning Game On Tonight Directv,
Witchcraft Norse Gods,
Sal Valentinetti And Heidi Klum Relationship,
Brigham And Women's Foxborough Lab Hours,
Willie Gary Net Worth 2021,
Articles E
