The Russian military conducted searches in Syria a few days ago for the remains of famed Israeli spy Eli Cohen. The London-based Arabic news outlet Rai Al-Youm reported Saturday.
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According to the unconfirmed report, the searches focused on the cemetery in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.
Rai Al-Youm claimed to be quoting a "senior official" in the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who said that Russia and Syria had recently stepped up searches for Cohen's body, which has been missing since he was executed in Damascus in the 1960s. The news outset said that the Russians were putting pressure on the Assad regime to provide information about where Cohen was buried, but it appears that officials in the regime do not have the information, as Cohen's remains were exhumed and moved when Assad's father, Hafez Assad, was still in power.
Warning: Graphic images
The report also said that the recent searches outraged Palestinian terrorist organizations in Syria, who claimed that the presence of non-Muslim soldiers in the camp's cemetery "desecrated" the honor of "martyrs" buried there.
Saturday's claims comprised the second report this month about the Russian army conducting searches in the Yarmouk cemetery, which came on the heels of a Russian-brokered prisoner exchange to secure the return of a young Israeli woman who voluntarily crossed the border.
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Israel released two Syrian shepherds being held, and media reports claimed that Israel had purchased $1 million worth of Russia's Sputnik-V COVID vaccine for Syria. However, both Israel and Syria denied these reports.
Earlier in February, Russia's RT television ran footage supposedly showing Cohen walking around the neighborhood in which he lived while under cover in Damascus. The footage dates from the same year Cohen was exposed by Syrian intelligence.
i24NEWS contributed to this report
