JERUSALEM: Emirati authorities said on Monday three suspects from Uzbekistan were in custody over the murder of a rabbi, a rare violent incident involving an Israeli citizen in the UAE, as his body was flown to Israel for burial.

The United Arab Emirates signed a peace agreement with Israel in 2020 under the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

Tzvi Kogan’s death was a blow to the tiny Jewish and Israeli communities in the UAE, which has kept a lower profile since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza in October 2023.

The 28-year-old UAE-based rabbi was found dead by security services last week. The three suspects were arrested on Sunday, and after “preliminary investigations” the interior ministry identified them in a statement.

“The authorities revealed the identities of the three perpetrators, all of whom are Uzbek nationals,” said the statement published by the official WAM news agency.

It named them as Olimboy Tohirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33.

The ministry said authorities were taking “the necessary actions to uncover the details, circumstances and motives of the crime”.

Kogan was in the UAE as a representative of the Chabad Hasidic movement, which is known for its outreach efforts worldwide.

A spokeswoman for Israel’s airport authority confirmed that his body had been flown home. Kogan’s funeral will take place on the Mount of Olives in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned “the murder of an Israeli citizen and a Chabad emissary”, calling it “an abhorrent anti-Semitic terrorist attack”.

In Washington, the White House urged accountability for the “horrific crime”.

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

In 2020, the year Israel normalised relations with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, Kogan joined his older brother Reuven and a team of rabbis in the UAE, according to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

Chabad said on its website Kogan had managed a kosher supermarket in Dubai, which a photographer said was closed on Monday with its window blinds down.

There is no figure for the number of Jews in the UAE, but an Israeli official said there were about 2,000 Israelis in the Gulf country, with the Jewish community estimated to be up to twice that figure.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash insisted Sunday the country remained “a society of tolerance and coexistence”, in a post on social media platform X that made no direct reference to Kogan.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2024