28 June 2021
My son, Yonatan, had an unexpected leave and we decided to explore some out-of-the-way places in the Golan. So we came to the shell of the Headquarters of the Syrian Forces in the Golan Heights, about a kilometre west of Quneitra and just east of Mount Bental, on the former road between Quneitra and the now-vanished village of Mansura. I had often seen this huge grey building from the lookout on Mount Bental, standing isolated in the fields near the ruins of Quneitra on the other side of the UN-patrolled border. But unlike my son, who had been there a number of times, I had never.
The huge headquarters was built by the Russians for the Syrians, between 1960 and 1962. It served as the main Syrian headquarters on the front facing Israel, but had also served the residents of the Golan to deal with civil issues. It was known at the time as Amalit (‘operations’ in Arabic). The building is now a tortured skeleton, an isolated huge building, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, close to the ruined Quneitra―which still languishes, largely destroyed and abandoned, inside the UN-patrolled buffer zone between Israel and Syria. This empty shell of a building is stripped bare of metalwork, glass, washroom ceramics and pipe, and even wooden door frames have gone. With long corridors, a dark basement, and naked walls which have become a canvas for graffiti, this is where the humiliation of the Syrian forces in 1967 began. It is a magnet for film crews, parties (apparently!) and surrealist artists these days, as well as a stop on Jeep tours and the Eli Cohen trail―on which it is station 7. The trail is a 70-kilometre route, dedicated to the heroic spy whose body was never returned to Israel for burial. It was the brainchild of tour guide Gil Brenner, and it opened in 2013. But who was the mysterious Cohen? We'll come back to him later. But first the building.
The building was attacked and occupied during the Six Day War by the 377th battalion of the 8th Division on Saturday 10 June 1967, at around 15:30. Lieutenant Colonel Pinchas “Alush” Noy, of Golani Brigade, went up to the roof and hung the flag of Israel on it. Thousands of documents were found in the building that were subsequently useful in the conflict and beyond. The building became the headquarters of the Golani Brigade, the 3rd Brigade, and the 36th Division.
On Sunday 11 June, Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan, Chief of Staff, Yitzhak Rabin, Chief of the Northern Command, David “Dado” Elazar, and Commander of the Israel Air Force, Mordechai “Motti” Hod, were among those who met in the building to determine the new border, plan the capture of Mont Hermon, and plan the military administration of the local civilian population.
During the first week of the Israeli occupation of the Golan, Edith Zertel, a reporter for Davar―the Hebrew-language daily newspaper published in the British Mandate of Palestine and Israel between 1925 and May 1996―toured the region, and entered Quneitra. She wrote, "The town is almost empty, although the war passed over it without leaving heavy marks. The Syrian area HQ, the largest modern building in the city, is damaged and scorched. The stairs are a bit reminiscent of the stairs of the Tel Aviv City Hall, but destroyed. The Israeli flag is on the roof."
Zvi Lavi of Maariv wrote of the inventory of equipment, ammunition and documents that were found in the main wing of the building, and that many IDF soldiers were stationed in the spacious, furnished rooms. The soldiers joked, "Deluxe conditions of the occupation!" and, above the sinks they hung signs, "Syrian water―not for drinking." Lavi met Lt Col Uri Simhoni, of the Golani Brigade, in the room which was formerly the office of Syrian Major-General Ahmad al-Mir, who was the commander of the Syrian front, in a rank equivalent to general. He described al-Mir's room as "Furnished with a Levantine flavour, full of red velvet upholstered chairs. On the wall hangs a map, dotted with arrows to mark the directions of the attack, the order and size of the IDF units, along with the size of the Syrian units that were to have attacked all areas of Israel, showing all possible variations."
A few days after the war, the violinist Uri Pianka and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Noam Sheriff, performed in front of the HQ building for IDF soldiers stationed in the Quneitra area. That must indeed have been surreal!
After the war, the building became a rear logistics base for the HaBat battalion and, in the ensuing years it housed various IDF units’ headquarters, but after the Yom Kippur War, in 1974, they left, and the building became the base of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), despite the damage which had occurred to the building in both wars, and the UN built a checkpoint next to it.
After the UN left, the already bomb-damaged building its current empty shell. About 120 metres by 30, the building forms three wings around an inner courtyard, with covered parking for a couple of dozen vehicles. It has two floors and a basement, with dozens of tall, spacious rooms, many with large windows. At either end of the front wing are wide staircases giving access to all floors, with a remarkable broad spiral staircase in front of the main entrance in the centre of the façade―the upper flight of which is now blocked by twisted iron and concrete resulting from a bomb. Although it suffered some tank shell damage in 1967, it was in 1973 that it received this and other major damage which remains visible today. That the building withstood such heavy bombing is testament to the Russian supervision of its construction, which resulted in a high standard both architecturally and in terms of durability, so that the building is not thought to be in imminent danger of collapse even today.
Left and centre: bomb damage to the central spiral staircase; right: bomb damage in the roof of the second-floor corridor.
Below is a slideshow of photos taken in the building.
Back to Eli Cohen who, whilst spying for Israel, visited the Syrian HQ on 19 October 1962, and possibly also on additional dates, to sign a permit that allowed him to travel south to al-Hama (now Hamat Gader).
Cohen was the quintessential, loyal patriot. Despite his wife, Nadia, and children, whom he loved dearly, his willingness to serve Israel to the best of his ability was all consuming, and he paid with his life. Cohen was born in Egypt to Syrian parents, immigrating in 1957. After losing his job as an accountant in 1960, he was recruited by the Mossad―the national intelligence agency of Israel―who needed a recruit who spoke perfect Arabic and could easily fit into Syrian high society. The idea was that he would enter Syria as the Kamel Amin Thaabet, a Syrian businessman who was returning to the country after living in Argentina.
To establish his cover, Cohen moved to Buenos Aires in 1961. In Buenos Aires he moved among the Arab community, letting it be known he had large amounts of money to put at the disposal of the Syrian Ba'ath party., which was to seize power in 1963. By 1962, after extensive training and setting up his cover, he moved to Damascus. He continued his life as a dashing socialite, spending time in cafes listening to political gossip, holding parties at his home for high-placed Syrian ministers, businessmen, and others, where he dispensed free-flowing liquor and prostitutes. High-ranking officials would openly discuss army plans with Cohen, who would pretend to be drunk to encourage loose speech. He would lend money to government officials, who often came to him for advice.
Cohen provided extensive intelligence for the Israeli Army between 1961 and 1965, sending it by radio, secret letters, and occasionally in person. His most famous achievement was a tour of the Golan Heights in which he collected intelligence on the Syrian fortifications. Legend has it in Israel that he feigned sympathy for the soldiers exposed to the sun and had eucalyptus trees planted at every position to provide shade; during the Six-Day War the IDF used the trees as markers for Syrian positions, judging their size according to the number of trees.
Following the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, Colonel Ahmed Suidani was appointed to head the Syrian Intelligence Directorate. Suidani trusted no one and disliked Cohen, who expressed fear of discovery to the Mossad on his final secret visit to Israel in November 1964, asking to terminate his assignment in Syria. However he was asked to return to Syria one more time and Cohen assured his wife it would be his last trip before he returned home permanently. In January 1965, Syrian officials increased their efforts to find a high-level spy with Soviet assistance, detecting illegal radio transmissions and triangulating the transmitter. Syrian security services led by Suidani broke into Cohen's apartment on 24 January and caught him in the middle of making a transmission to Israel. After repeated interrogation and torture, Cohen was found guilty of espionage by a military tribunal and sentenced to death under martial law. International pleas for clemency were to no avail, and Cohen was hanged in Marjeh Square in Damascus on 18 May 1965. His final wish was to see a rabbi, and Rav Nissim Indibo, the elderly Chief Rabbi of Syria, accompanied him in the truck to the hanging. Syria refused to return Cohen's body to his family in Israel, and has continued to do so to this day.
In his final letter, three days before his death, Cohen wrote to his wife, "I am begging you, my dear Nadia, not to spend your time in weeping about some thing already passed. Concentrate on yourself, looking forward for a better future!"
In front of the Syrian HQ building there is today a memorial stone with a sculpted padlock―perhaps hinting that the place was the key to the Syrian military secrets, part of which Eli Cohen obtained for Israel. One of the rooms in the north-eastern wing has been made a memorial room to Cohen, with informational signboards and copies of archive photos. As mentioned, Cohen visited the Syrian intelligence division in the building on 19 October 1962, to obtain a license to tour the Golan Heights―non-residents of the Golan, even if they were Syrian nationals, required special permits. The permit said:
Visit permit to al-Hama for Kamel Amin Thaabet The Arab Republic of Syria 1. Name: Kamel Amin Thaabet only 2. Citizenship: Argentinian (originally) 3. Reason: Bathing 4. Date of leaving and return: 19.10.1962, 30.10.1962 5. This approval is for several trips
General Abed El-Karim Zahar El-Adin Commander of the Army and the Armed forces
A display in the memorial room to Eli Cohen, z"l.
Interesting stories in an interesting and mysterious building.
