Israel has retrieved thousands of items belonging to the country's most famous spy after a covert operation in Syria, authorities said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared some of the 2,500 items from the Syrian archive relating to Eli Cohen on Sunday, a spy for the national intelligence agency Mossad who infiltrated the political echelon in the neighbouring country.
Sunday marked 60 years since he was hanged in a square in Damascus.
The items recently spirited into Israel include documents, recordings, photos, and items collected by Syrian intelligence after his capture in January 1965, letters in his own handwriting to his family in Israel, photographs of his activity during his operational mission in Syria and personal objects that were taken from his home after his capture.
Suitcases of items brought to Israel included folders filled with handwritten notes, keys to his apartment in Damascus, passports and false identification documents, instructions from Mossad to monitor specific people and places and documentation of all the efforts of his widow, Nadia Cohen, begging world leaders for his release from prison.
Cohen's success in Syria was one of the Mossad spy agency's first significant achievements, and the top-secret intelligence he obtained is widely credited with helping Israel prepare for its swift victory in the 1967 Middle East War.
Cohen managed to forge close contacts within the political and military hierarchy of Israel’s archenemy in the early 1960s, ultimately rising to become a top adviser to Syria's defence minister.
In 1965, Cohen was caught radioing information to Israel. He was tried and hanged in a Damascus square on 18 May 1965.
Whereabouts of Cohen's body still a mystery
His remains have yet to be returned to Israel, where he is regarded as a national hero.
In 2019, actor Sacha Baron Cohen (no relation) portrayed Eli Cohen in a six-episode Netflix series called "The Spy."
"We conducted a special operation by the Mossad, by the State of Israel, to bring (Eli Cohen’s) archive, which had been in the safes of the Syrian intelligence for 60 years," Netanyahu said in Jerusalem.
Ahead of viewing the items, Cohen's widow Nadia told Netanyahu that the most important thing was to bring her husband's body back to Israel.
Netanyahu said Israel was continuing to work on locating his remains.
"Eli is an Israeli legend. He's the greatest agent Israeli intelligence has had in the years the state existed. There was no one like him," Netanyahu said.
The Israeli daily Maariv reported on Friday that senior officials from Syria's new interim government reportedly offered to return the remains of Cohen to Israel during reconciliation talks in Tel Aviv.
Syria's transitional government was sworn in in March, almost four months after a lightning rebel offensive in December forced long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad from power, forcing him to flee to Moscow.
Since then, interim president and former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has sought to normalise ties with both regional countries and Western powers, including the US and the EU, with the aim of removing crippling economic sanctions placed on Syria during the al-Assad dictatorship.
