Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a Jewish Chabad emissary to the UAE and a former Israeli soldier, is the individual who contact was lost with last Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.
The Shin Bet possesses information indicating that he was tracked and may have been kidnapped and killed.
The rabbi played an important role in deepening normalization with Israel and established several Jewish religious centers there.
The Israeli occupation refers to the incident as a nationalist attack and has started cooperating with the UAE to investigate the case.
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The Israeli National Security Council urges settlers and Israelis to refrain from traveling to the UAE except in cases of necessity.
Rabbi Zvi Kogan, who served in the Israeli army as a fighter in the Givati Brigade, was the director of the kosher Jewish supermarket “Rimon” in Dubai.
Investigations revealed that three Uzbeks followed him after he left the same supermarket and while he was traveling to the city of Al Ain, about an hour and a half from Dubai. The Uzbek cell kidnapped and killed him before fleeing by plane to Turkey.
Kogan, who served as a soldier in the Israeli army, drove to Al Ain, approximately an hour and a half from Dubai. His car was later found abandoned, and his phone was turned off.
So, what is this group?
Chabad is a Haredi religious group known for its strong ties with the Israeli occupation army (unlike most Haredi groups).
This group supervises over 80% of the religious Zionist lessons given to soldiers and incites them to kill civilians, children, and women. It opposes any withdrawal from Palestine, including Gaza and the West Bank.
Despite this hostility, Chabad has a center and synagogues in the UAE.
Rabbi Zvi Kogan opened the first kosher supermarket to exist in the UAE.
Prior to the 2020 Abraham Accords, less than 150 Jews lived in or traveled to the UAE – mostly foreign nationals who were there discretely for work. There was zero access to kosher food.
Today, over 2,000 Jews live in UAE w/ over 200,000 Jews visiting per year, Thanks to Rabbi Kogan, Jews around the world could freely embrace the new opportunities afforded by the Abraham Accords without worrying about the hardship of accessing kosher food or maintaining a Jewish lifestyle.
