May 18, 1965: Eli Cohen is hanged in Marjeh Square in Damascus after being convicted of spying for Israel and being sentenced to death March 31, 1965.

Cohen was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1924 to parents who were natives of Syria. Although his parents and brothers left for Israel in 1949, he remained in Egypt until 1956 and may have been involved with Israel’s unsuccessful Operation Susannah, in which small bombs were meant to produce an Egyptian government crackdown on dissidents and inspire enough unrest to justify continued British control of the Suez Canal. The political repercussions of the intelligence operation’s failure resulted in the Lavon Affair.

Because of his fluency with Arabic, familiarity with Egypt and connections to Syria, which together formed the United Arab Republic from 1958 to 1961, Cohen was recruited in 1960 to become a spy for Israel.