On Sunday, November 24, Tzvi Kogan, a Moldavian-Israeli rabbi, was found murdered. The man, aged 28 years old, had been missing since Thursday in the United Arab Emirates, where he had been based since 2020. On Monday, the Emirati authorities revealed the identity of the three arrested suspects: Olimboy Tohirovich (28 years old), Makhmudjon Abdurakhim (28 years old) and Azizbek Kamilovich (33 years old), all three of Uzbek nationality. The security services are now seeking to “elucidate the details, circumstances and motivations of the crime”, indicated the official Emirati agency WAM, citing a press release from the Ministry of the Interior.
For its part, the Israeli government claimed to have information indicating that this assassination was an act of terrorism. Israel has not said who might be behind such an attack in the Arab Gulf state, but it has repeatedly accused Iran and its allies of seeking to target Israelis abroad. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the murder of Rabbi Kogan a “despicable anti-Semitic terrorist attack.” In recorded remarks to cabinet ministers, he said Israel would “do justice” to anyone responsible, reports The New York Times.
Israeli media also suggested that a cell indirectly managed by Iran was responsible for Kogan’s kidnapping and assassination. The newspaper Haaretz reported that Israeli security sources said that members of the cell responsible for the assassination of Tzvi Kogan were citizens of Uzbekistan, who had fled to Turkey to divert attention from Iran. For its part, the Iranian embassy in the United Arab Emirates declared that it “categorically rejects the allegations implicating Iran” in this murder.
“Precautions” for Israelis in the Emirates
Rabbi Kogan disappeared in Dubai on Thursday and his body was found in Al-Ain, a town near the border with Oman, about 150 kilometers from Abu Dhabi. Tzvi Kogan was an emissary to the United Arab Emirates of Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic movement driven by a global missionary commitment to strengthening Jewish identity and bringing Jews closer to their faith, also known as Chabad, the newspaper reports Lebanese the Orient-Le Jour.
He moved to the United Arab Emirates in 2020, the year of the signing of the agreements to normalize relations between the Emirates and Israel, known as the Abraham Accords, promoted by Donald Trump during his first term ( 2016-2020), notes the Lebanese daily The Orient-The Day. There is no official figure on the number of Jews in the United Arab Emirates, but an Israeli official told Agence France Presse that around 2,000 Israelis reside in the country, with the Jewish community estimated at around 4,000. people. The country’s small Israeli and Jewish community now has religious centers and even kosher restaurants, in accordance with Jewish religious law, notes The New York Times. Tzi Kogan, had recently opened a small kosher supermarket, on the busy Al Wasl road in Dubai, indicates The Guardian.
After the discovery of the rabbi’s body, however, Israeli authorities renewed the warning to the population to avoid all non-essential travel to the Emirates, and advised citizens already there to take additional precautions. People in the country must conceal “anything that could identify them as Israeli” and refrain from visiting sites associated with that country’s Israeli and Jewish communities, Israel’s National Security Council said.
Relations strained since October 7
Relations between the two countries have been strained since Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The Emirati government’s statements regarding the disappearance of Rabbi Tzvi Kogan only referred to his Moldovan nationality, and not to his Israeli nationality, reports the American daily. For Abu Dhabi, it could be a matter of disconnecting this crime, as much as possible, from possible criticism of its regional diplomacy, the most favorable to Israel among the countries in the region, points out International Mail.
In addition, this murder takes place in a context of increased tensions between Israel and Iran, marked by exchanges of direct military strikes during the year, against a backdrop of war in Gaza, recalls The World. At the beginning of October, the airstrikes carried out by Israel against Iran would have affected “an element of the nuclear program” of the Islamic Republic, declared this Monday, November 18, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Tehran has since threatened to retaliate “at the appropriate time”.