Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Photo: Getty images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that justice will be served against those responsible for the death of Rabbi Tzvi Kogan, a citizen of Israel and Moldova, whose corpse was found in the United Arab Emirates. The Israeli authorities described this tragedy as an “anti-Semitic terrorist attack”, EFE reports.
“The murder of an Israeli citizen and a Chabad ambassador is a terrorist anti-Semitic crime,” Netanyahu said at the start of a government meeting on Sunday, adding that Israel would “use all means” to bring the perpetrators to justice. “None of them will be spared,” the prime minister stressed.
Tzvi Kogan, a 28-year-old rabbi from an ultra-Orthodox community, disappeared last Thursday while living in Dubai. He was an ambassador for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, one of the most influential and practiced branches of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, based in Brooklyn, New York.
Netanyahu thanked the United Arab Emirates for its cooperation in the investigation and said the two countries would continue to work to strengthen their ties.
Israel and the UAE established diplomatic relations in September 2020 as part of the Abram Accords and have made significant progress in bilateral relations, particularly in trade. However, the wars in Gaza and Lebanon have cooled these ties, although they have not been completely suspended.
Other Israeli officials also condemned the attack. The Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that it had been informed through diplomatic channels of the death of Tzvi Kogan, who had Moldovan citizenship. Therefore, the Moldovan side maintains constant communication with the UAE authorities to clarify the circumstances of the incident, MOLDPRES reports.
