Israeli Rabbi Killed in UAE: A New Front in the Shadow War?

An Israeli-Moldovan man who had been missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found dead, announced Israeli authorities on Sunday, branding his killing “an abhorrent act of antisemitic terrorism”.

Emirati intelligence and security services located the body of Zvi Kogan, an emissary for the Jewish Chabad religious group, three days after he vanished after leaving the store where he worked.

Neither Israel or the UAE gave any details about the circumstances in which Kogan was killed. The Israeli prime minister’s office said Israel would “use all means and will deal with the criminals responsible for his death to the fullest extent of the law”.

It also told Israeli citizens to take extra precautions in the UAE, and reiterated a warning against all but essential travel to the country. The Gulf state, which is the region’s trade, tourism and finance hub, was the first of three Arab countries that normalised relations with Israel in a landmark deal in 2020, known as the Abraham Accords.

After the deal, the UAE welcomed Israeli tourists and business people, particularly technology entrepreneurs as it sought to build economic ties, with a focus on tapping Israeli technology.

The small, autocratic state, which has a highly sophisticated security apparatus, was considered one of the safest countries in the region for Israelis to travel to.

The UAE did not immediately comment on Kogan’s killing. In a statement on Saturday after Israel announced that Kogan had gone missing, the UAE’s foreign minis…  try said Emirati authorities were taking “extensive measures” to find him, referring to Kogan only as Moldovan.

The killing comes at a turbulent time in the Middle East, which is in the grip of a spiralling conflict that began with Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel. It has since escalated across the region, with Israeli forces launching a ground invasion of Lebanon, exchanging missile salvos with Iran, and trading fire with Iranian proxies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The UAE has remained committed to the Abraham Accords, while joining other Arab states in condemning the devastation caused by Israel’s more than year-long assault against Hamas in Gaza.