Spy watch

Israel’s Secret Operation to Recover the Watch of a Legendary Spy

Eli Cohen in Damascus, Syria, in the early 1960s, wearing the watch that was recovered in a secret operation and brought back to Israel.CreditIsrael Government Press Office

By Ronen Bergman

July 5, 2018

TEL AVIV — The news came in a brief announcement on Thursday from the Israeli prime minister’s office: a watch belonging to a legendary Israeli spy had been recovered in a secret operation and brought back to Israel.

The watch belonged to Eli Cohen, whose spying in Syria is credited with helping Israel to a quick victory in the 1967 war, long after he had been caught and executed by the Syrian government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the “determined and courageous action” of the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, for returning “a memory from a heroic fighter who contributed greatly to the security of the state.”

But the announcement was tantalizingly short on specifics, setting off a buzz across Israel. Mr. Cohen was a national hero, with streets and buildings named after him and ceremonies honoring his memory every year. But had the Mossad, as Mr. Netanyahu implied, carried out a secret operation to recover a wristwatch?

In part, yes.

The operation, according to an Israeli official with knowledge of it, was part of a broader 14-year hunt by the Mossad to find Mr. Cohen’s body, which 53 years after his execution in Damascus had never been located. The main goal was to recover the body and return it for a hero’s burial in Israel. But part of the operation was to recover any personal items belonging to the spy.

The spy agency has invested huge sums and resources in the larger quest, including endangering life and paying bribes to agents and crooks, Israeli intelligence officials said. Still, the body has not been found.

But during the search, the official said, Mossad agents located a man who had the watch and began an operation to obtain it.

Mr. Cohen’s mission in Syria in the early 1960s is perhaps the most fabled military and intelligence episode in Israel’s history, and is considered one of the Mossad’s greatest successes and failures ever.

Mr. Cohen, an Egyptian Jew, immigrated to Israel in 1957 and joined Israeli military intelligence in 1960. He was assigned to be an undercover agent posing as a wealthy Syrian business executive recently returned from Argentina.

He befriended top Syrian officials, whom he lured to his apartment with lavish parties where he dispensed free-flowing liquor and prostitutes. Over the years, he was able to provide the Mossad with extensive information on the Syrian order of battle, the location of fortifications, Syria’s relations with the Soviet Union, parliamentary gossip and power struggles within the leadership.

Under pressure from his handlers in Israel, and overconfident in his own cover story, he started broadcasting messages in Morse code on a near-daily basis using a telegraphic device he kept hidden at his home. But his transmitter caused interference with the radio used by the Syrian Army chief of staff command, which was across the street from his apartment, eventually leading to his capture.

He was arrested, interrogated, brutally tortured, tried, and sentenced to death. Israel did everything in its power to stop his execution, asking foreign diplomats to intervene and offering the Syrians a huge ransom to no avail.

The watch that belonged to Eli Cohen, whose spying in Syria is credited with helping Israel’s quick victory in the 1967 war.CreditAmos Ben Gershom/Israel Government Press Office

Mr. Cohen was hanged on May 19, 1965, at Marja Square at the center of Damascus, his body left swaying on the rope for hours as a grim warning.

Syrian authorities, apparently aware of the importance Israel has attached to the return of bodies of soldiers and officials, have since refused repeated Israeli requests to release the body.

The Mossad first proposed a plan to recover it in 2004, according to the agency’s former chief, Meir Dagan. However, that operation and a series of others since then have not turned up Mr. Cohen’s remains.

The Mossad did discover that the body had been removed from the Jewish cemetery in Damascus where it was initially buried, and transferred once or several times to other places, apparently in an effort to keep Israel off track. Some Israeli intelligence officials have concluded that even Syrian intelligence no longer knows where the Israeli spy is buried.

Two years ago, the current head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, ordered a renewed effort.

Trying to reach people who took part in the arrest, investigation, trial and execution, the Mossad learned that one person involved in the investigation had kept the watch, for some reason without the strap, and passed it on to someone close to him.

For the past 18 months, the Mossad has been conducting a complex operation in the heart of Damascus to obtain the watch from this man. The official did not explain how Mossad agents acquired the watch.

When the watch arrived in Israel, the Mossad carried out another operation to verify that this was indeed Mr. Cohen’s watch.

Mr. Cohen occasionally traveled to Europe, and from there to Israel to meet with his operators. He used to come back from these visits, like a wealthy business executive, with luxury goods. From one visit to Europe, he returned with an expensive Omega watch. The Mossad has found documents showing the watch was purchased in Switzerland.

Forensics experts, photo experts who examined pictures of Mr. Cohen with his watch, and other experts were recruited. Swiss archives and records were also examined. About three months ago, the experts concluded that this was the famous spy’s timepiece.

Mr. Cohen’s loss was a deep wound for the Mossad.

“We remember Eli Cohen and we do not forget his legacy, a legacy of devotion, determination, courage and love of the homeland is our heritage,” Mr. Cohen, the Mossad chief, said Thursday in a statement.

”Of the operational effort,” he added, “we managed to locate and bring to Israel the wristwatch of Eli Cohen, which he wore in Syria until the day he was caught, and was part of Eli’s operational character and part of his fictitious Arab identity.”

The watch was supposed to be handed over to the family soon, but Mr. Cohen’s widow, Nadia Cohen, hinted in an interview to Israeli military radio that she might prefer that it remain with the Mossad.

“The Mossad told us a few weeks ago that they got information on the watch and that it was about to be sold,” she said in the interview. “We do not know where, in which place, how, in which country, or how did they learn about it.”

The Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, said the search for Mr. Cohen’s body would continue.

A version of this article appears in print on July 6, 2018, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Secret Operation to Recover the Watch of a Spy Sets Israel Abuzz.