Israel said Sunday 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.”
Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a Kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said 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 Zvi Kogan was a terror attack and offered no additional details.
The Emirati government yet to comment on the incident. However, senior Emirati diplomat Anwer Gargash wrote on the social platform X in Arabic on Sunday 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.”
Early Sunday, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan’s disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being “missing and out of contact.”
