Eli Cohen: Mossad Agent 88
The life and death of Israeli spy Eli Cohen, who operated undercover in Syria in 1960s before his identity was revealed.
In one of the most audacious individual espionage operations ever, Eli Cohen, an Egyptian-born Jewish accounting clerk, was recruited by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, trained intensively as a field agent for six months and given a new identity as an Arab businessman in South America.
In 1962, he was deployed as a spy to Damascus where he successfully ingratiated himself with the higher echelons of Syrian society.
He fed intelligence to Mossad for three years and is credited by some for enabling the Israeli military to take the Golan Heights in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Cohen was eventually found out, however, and publicly executed in 1965.
In this documentary, a Syrian politician and writer discusses the events that led to the arrest, trial and death sentence of Mossad Agent 88.