Eli Cohen

Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen was born in Egypt on 26 December 1924. Between 1961 and 1965 he ran an espionage operation in Syria for Mossad, building relationships at the highest levels of the country's political and military command. By 1964 Cohen told his handlers he sensed the danger closing in. A year later Syrian intelligence uncovered his true allegiance. He was convicted under pre-war martial law, sentenced to death, and publicly hanged in Damascus on 18 May 1965. The execution sharpened the spiral of hostilities between Israel and Syria in the lead-up to the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. In Israel…