It sometimes takes a while before the actual cost of a successful military operation in terms of lost lives is revealed, but all indications are that the surprise June 13 attack against Iran by Israel was executed without the loss of any of the agents it had pre-positioned in that country. If so, this is a remarkable achievement. It reflects their courage, skill and cunning in coordinating the plan’s success. It was the culmination of a plan Israel began putting together after first learning about Iran’s clandestine nuclear construction program in 2002.
As a ceasefire followed the 12-day war, Iran moved quickly to identify, arrest, and even execute Israeli agents allegedly involved in the operation. While not yet substantiated, one source reports as many as 700 arrests were made. However, the far more likely scenario is that the mullahs have simply used this opportunity as an excuse to arrest known anti-government activists.
Anyone liking or sharing anti-regime social-media posts has been closely scrutinized. The regime has warned Jewish leaders in Iran “anyone caught speaking to people in Israel will automatically be imprisoned for six months on charges of espionage against the state.”
During its 76-year history, what has enabled Israel to survive despite its encirclement by enemies determined to destroy it has been the courage and commitment of its people. No one Israeli reflected this survival spirit more than Eli Cohen (1924–1965), who perhaps was the most successful spy in the state’s existence—even becoming a third-in-line candidate within the country upon which he was spying.
Born in Egypt to Syrian Jewish parents, he went to work for Israel’s intelligence agency—the Mossad—famously infiltrating Syrian high society during the 1960s. Adopting the alias of Kamal Amin Thabet, he moved to Argentina in 1961 to establish connections with the Syrian expatriate community as a successful businessman. After doing so, he then moved to Damascus, Syria in 1962, where he cultivated a relationship with political and military leaders—including Amin al-Hafez, who later became president.
Cohen acquired intelligence that was invaluable to Israel. He learned about Syrian fortifications on the Golan Heights and a secret bunker system being installed—intel which would later prove helpful to Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. He also learned about Syrian plans to divert the flow of the Jordan River headwaters. This would have cut Israel off from an important water resource had not Cohen’s intelligence allowed it to take preventative action.
Despite expressing a sense of impending danger to his handlers in 1964 during a visit to Israel, Cohen returned to Syria where, in 1965, he was arrested, convicted, and hanged in a public execution in the city’s Marjeh Square. Repeated requests to the Syrian government for the return of his body were denied.
Cohen’s burial location still remains unknown to this day. In 2021, the Israelis began seeking the assistance of Russian mediators to locate his remains, along with those of two Israeli soldiers missing since 1982. Three generations after Cohen’s death, he remains well known by young Israelis as a national hero.