3 Uzbek nationals arrested in the killing of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi in the UAE

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates said Monday police arrested three Uzbek nationals for the killing of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi, an attack that's raised concerns for the burgeoning Israeli community in the country.

The statement from the country's Interior Ministry offered no motive for the slaying of Zvi Kogan, though an Israeli Foreign Ministry official later told The Associated Press that he simply had been “killed because of who he was."

Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a kosher grocery store in the city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.

The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel. 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 UAE.

The Interior Ministry statement identified the three men as Olimboy Tohirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33. The state-run WAM news agency carried images of the three men, blindfolds covering their faces in prison uniforms and flip flops.

The preliminary probe into the men is “in preparation for referring them to the public prosecution for further investigation,” the Interior Ministry said.

It wasn't immediately clear if the three men had lawyers or had sought consular assistance in the UAE, an autocratically ruled nation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. The Uzbek Consulate in Dubai did not respond to a request for comment regarding the arrests.

Israeli media reports, citing unnamed security officials, had alleged Uzbeks were involved in Kogan's killing. Uzbeks and other transnational criminal gangs previously have been hired in Iranian plots targeting dissidents and others.

Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack. Iran's Embassy in Abu Dhabi has denied Tehran was involved in the rabbi's slaying.

While the UAE 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. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters Monday that the “terrorists” who killed the rabbi would be brought to justice and pointed a finger at the “axis of evil” — a phrase Israel has used to refer to Iran and its allies. That echoed remarks Sunday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also used the phrase “axis of evil.”

Kogan's wife, Rivky, is an American citizen. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayhan, the UAE's foreign minister, to condemn Kogan's killing.

Blinken “expressed appreciation for the UAE’s close security cooperation with the United States and other partners in the region, as well as its long-standing tradition of and commitment to tolerance and freedom of worship,” the State Department said.

The Rimon Market, a kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai’s 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 back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off.

Kogan's body was flown back to Israel on Monday ahead of a planned funeral the following day. His casket, covered in a prayer shawl, arrived to Kfar Chabad, Israel, on Monday night in front of a crowd of hundreds who gathered in the rain to honor him.

“How long will Jews continue to die for the sanctification of God?” Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Aharonov asked those gathered.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation and diplomatic matters, said authorities believe Kogan's death came from his identity as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, not anything else.

“He was attacked because of who he was,” the official said.

Since the Oct. 7 attacks, Israelis and Jews in the UAE have been on edge. Worship, which typically requires 10 Jewish men to happen, still takes place but not at sites previously used by the community, the official said.

The official acknowledged that tensions likely boil beneath the surface in the UAE, but praised the Emirati government for their investigation into Kogan's killing. Israeli security services have been involved in the probe, the official said. That likely includes the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service.

The UAE, while strenuously criticizing the conduct of the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, has maintained its diplomatic relations with Israel. Israeli diplomats also have returned to Bahrain, the official said.

“They might not agree with what we do in the war ... but the dialogue allows them to send in all the humanitarian aid,” the official said of the Emirati government.

The official added: “It's been challenging to the relationship, but in a way, that keeps it strong.”

The RANE Network, a risk consultancy, separately warned that countries like that UAE that have normalized ties with Israel “will likely face a similarly low risk of attacks by lone actors, small cells or jihadist groups against Israeli, Jewish or even Western individuals and businesses allegedly associated with Israel.”

“The incident highlights heightened anti-Israeli sentiment in the region over the war in Gaza, as well as the ongoing shadow war between Iran and Israel,” it added.