UAE arrests three after Israeli rabbi killed

The United Arab Emirates said on Sunday it had arrested three suspects in the murder of an Israeli rabbi, which Israel has claimed is an anti-Semitic 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 rabbi’s body had been found by security services in the Gulf state, the Israeli prime minister’s office and the foreign ministry said earlier Sunday.

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.

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

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking of Kogan’s death at the start of a cabinet meeting, said that “the murder of an Israeli citizen and a Chabad emissary is an abhorrent anti-Semitic terrorist attack.”

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

An Israeli official, briefing journalists on condition of anonymity, said Kogan’s body could be repatriated Monday.

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement said that he would “be laid to rest in Israel”.