Israel has said that an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident”.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement about the death of Zvi Kogan, who worked in the UAE for an Orthodox Jewish group called Chabad and had not been seen since Thursday.
“The state of Israel will use all means at its disposal to bring the criminals responsible for his death to justice,” the Israeli prime minister’s statement said.
Late on Sunday, UAE authorities said they had arrested three people over the attack. The Emirati interior ministry did not give further details on the suspects but said the ministry would use “all legal powers to respond decisively and without leniency to any actions or attempts that threaten societal stability”.
Earlier in the day, the UAE’s state-run news agency acknowledged Kogan’s disappearance but did not mention his reported Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as Moldovan. It is unclear exactly when and where the 28-year-old’s body was found.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing, and thanked Emirati authorities for “their swift action” on Sunday morning.
The White House said on Sunday it was working in close coordination with Israel and the UAE. White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said: “We condemn in the strongest terms the murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan in the UAE and our prayers are with his family.”
The Iranian embassy in the UAE responded to accusations of Tehran’s involvement, saying it “categorically rejects the allegations of Iran’s involvement in the murder of this individual”.
Israeli authorities repeated their warning against all non-essential travel by Israelis to the UAE and said visitors currently there should minimise movement and remain in secure areas.
The UAE normalised relations with Israel in 2020, alongside other countries including Bahrain and Morocco. The agreement has held through more than a year of acute regional tensions since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of tit-for-tat exchanges with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the UAE.
Tensions have risen elsewhere in the region. In Jordan, a man was killed on Sunday after opening fire on and wounding three members of the security forces near the Israeli embassy in the capital, Amman, state media said, in an incident described by the government spokesperson as a “terrorist attack”.
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a prominent branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in the US, said on Saturday that Kogan was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering for kosher diners.
“With great pain we share that Rabbi Zvi Kogan, Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to Abu Dhabi, UAE, was murdered by terrorists after being abducted on Thursday. His body was recovered early Sunday morning, and his family has been notified,” a statement from the movement said.
The Rimon Market, a small kosher supermarket that Kogan managed on Dubai’s busy Al Wasl Road, was shut on Sunday. The store has been the target of online protests by supporters of Palestinians over the last year. Mezuzahs – small parchment scrolls in containers placed on doorposts by observant Jews – on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press reporter visited on Sunday.
Ynet, an Israeli news website, reported that Kogan’s car was found abandoned in Al Ain, a town 80 miles (130km) from Dubai, and that investigators believed he was followed by “three Uzbek operatives”.
Other Israeli media suggested a cell indirectly operated by Iran was responsible for the abduction and killing of Kogan. The Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli security sources had said members of the cell responsible for Kogan’s killing were citizens of Uzbekistan, who fled to Turkey to divert attention from Iran.
Tehran’s intelligence services have carried out kidnappings in the UAE and western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations there, monitoring hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.
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