UAE arrests three for murder of Israeli rabbi Tzvi Kogan

The United Arab Emirates said Sunday it arrested three people for the murder of an Israeli rabbi, which Israel has condemned as an anti-Semitic “terrorist attack”.

“The Ministry of Interior announced that the UAE authorities have arrested in record time the three perpetrators involved in the murder” of Tzvi Kogan, a statement carried by the official WAM news agency said.

The ministry described Kogan as “a Moldovan national according to his identification documents at the time of entry into the UAE, where he lived as a resident”.

The 28-year-old’s body had been found by security services in the Gulf Arab state, the Israeli prime minister’s office and the foreign ministry said earlier Sunday.

More from World

Nepal's new PM pays homage to people died during the Gen Z protest in her first national address This Week in Explainers: How recovering from Gen-Z protests is a Himalayan task for Nepal

UAE normalised relations with Israel in 2020 alongside Bahrain and Morocco.

The Israeli-Moldovan national was living and working in the UAE as a representative of the Chabad Hasidic movement, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group known for its outreach efforts worldwide.

“This murder was carried out in the UAE. The murder of an Israeli citizen and a Chabad emissary, is an abhorrent anti-Semitic terrorist attack,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

Neither Emirati nor Israeli officials provided any details about the circumstances of Kogan’s murder.

‘Great pain’

Israeli President Isaac Herzog in a statement said “this vile anti-Semitic attack is a reminder of the inhumanity of the enemies of the Jewish people”.

Herzog said the murder would not “deter us from continuing to grow flourishing communities in the UAE or anywhere”.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

‘The cries of this widow will echo’: In first public remarks, Erika Kirk warns Charlie’s killers they’ve ‘unleashed a fire’

Trump urges Nato to back sanctions on Russia, calls for 50–100% tariffs on China

Moldova said earlier Sunday its embassy in Abu Dhabi was cooperating with local officials and “closely monitoring the situation, providing the necessary support”.

It only mentioned Kogan was missing and did not refer to his death.

In a message on X, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement expressed its “great pain” alongside a photo of the rabbi, adding that he had been “murdered by terrorists after being abducted on Thursday”.

Israel renewed a warning for Israelis to avoid any non-essential travel to the UAE, and advised citizens already in the Gulf country to take extra precautions.

Ayoob Kara, a member of Israel’s Druze community and a former cabinet minister, called the killing “a surprise”.

Speaking outside a kosher market in Dubai which he said Kogan managed, and which was shut Sunday, Kara told AFP: “Everything is beautiful here, everything is in control here.”

‘Oasis of stability’

The oil-rich Gulf state, whose population is made up mainly of expatriates, opened an interfaith centre last year in Abu Dhabi housing a mosque, a church and a synagogue.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash insisted Sunday the country remained “an oasis of stability, a society of tolerance and coexistence”, in a post on X, but made no direct reference to Kogan.

There is no official figure for the number of Jews in the UAE, but the World Jewish Congress estimated between 500 and 3,000 Jews live there, most of whom are foreigners.

But the war in Gaza, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, has sparked rising anger in the Middle East.

In Jordan, a man was killed 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 spokesman as a “terrorist attack”.

Investigations were underway to uncover the circumstances and motives behind the attack.