Rabbi missing in the UAE killed in ‘heinous antisemitic terror incident’, Israel says

Tel Aviv: Israel said that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident”.

The UAE’s Interior Ministry later said authorities arrested three suspects involved in the killing of Zvi Kogan.

Three people have been arrested following the alleged murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Kogan in the United Arab Emirates.Credit: x.com/Chabad

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Israel “will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death”. Israeli authorities did not say how they determined the killing of Kogan was a terror attack and offered no additional details.

Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a kosher grocery store in Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.

The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel. But Israel’s devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the UAE.

Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.

A man walks past Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store managed by the late Rabbi Zvi Kogan, in Dubai.Credit: AP

The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment. However, senior Emirati diplomat Anwer Gargash wrote on X in Arabic that “the UAE will remain a home of safety, an oasis of stability, a society of tolerance and coexistence and a beacon of development, pride and advancement”.

Earlier, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan’s disappearance but did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as “missing and out of contact”.

“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the Interior Ministry said.

The ministry later said three “perpetrators” had been arrested “in record time” without giving additional details.

Netanyahu told a regular cabinet meeting on Sunday that he was “deeply shocked” by Kogan’s disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the co-operation of the UAE in the investigation and that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened.

Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for “their swift action”. He said he trusts they “will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice”.

Israel also again warned against all non-essential travel to the Emirates after Kogan’s killing.

“There is concern that there is still a threat against Israelis and Jews in the area,” a government warning issued on Sunday said.

Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighbourhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.

The Rimon Market, a kosher grocery store Kogan managed on Dubai’s busy Al Wasl Road, was shut on Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.

Kogan’s wife, Rivky, is a US citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.

While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.

Ayoob Kara, a member of Israel’s ruling right-wing Likud party who promotes economic relations between Israel and the Arab world, said there were indications that investigators suspected Iranian involvement, Reuters reported.

The Iranian embassy in the UAE said it “categorically rejects the allegations of Iran’s involvement in the murder of this individual”.

Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.

Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.

AP, Reuters