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Israel says rabbi who went missing in the UAE was killed

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) 鈥 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 鈥渉einous antisemitic terror incident.
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A man walks past Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store managed by the late Rabbi Zvi Kogan, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) 鈥 Israel said Sunday that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi has been found after he was killed in what it described as a 鈥渉einous antisemitic terror incident.鈥

The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel 鈥渨ill act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death.鈥 There was no immediate comment from the UAE.

Zvi 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 .

The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by . But Israel's devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the the UAE.

Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.

The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.

Early Sunday, the UAE鈥檚 state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan鈥檚 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 鈥渕issing and out of contact.鈥

鈥淪pecialized authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,鈥 the Interior Ministry said.

Israel's largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for "their swift action." He said he trusts they 鈥渨ill work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.鈥

Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with and businesses catering to kosher diners.

The Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai鈥檚 busy Al Wasl Road, was shut Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.

Kogan鈥檚 wife, Rivky, is a U.S. citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.

While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.

Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.

Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, .

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Tia Goldenberg And Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press