An Israeli rabbi in the United Arab Emirates who had been missing since Thursday has been found dead, the Israeli authorities announced early on Sunday.

Israeli officials said the rabbi, Zvi Kogan, had been murdered and called his death an act of terrorism, without providing any further details.

The Emirati authorities — who on Saturday said officials were investigating the rabbi’s disappearance — did not immediately comment on his death.

But a senior official stressed on Sunday that the Emirates was a safe place, without explicitly mentioning rabbi Kogan.

“With the determination and resolve of its leadership and people, the UAE will remain a safe haven, an oasis of stability, a society of tolerance and coexistence,” Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the Emirati president, wrote on social media.

Kogan, a dual citizen of Israel and Moldova, worked in Abu Dhabi as part of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a spiritual branch of Orthodox Judaism that conducts Jewish outreach around the world.

“With great pain we share that Rabbi Zvi Kogan, Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to Abu Dhabi, UAE, was murdered by terrorists after being abducted on Thursday,” Chabad said in a brief statement, adding that his body had been recovered early on Sunday morning.

According to Chabad, Kogan had worked “for several years in establishing and expanding Jewish life in the Emirates”. His wife, Rivky, joined him there after their marriage in 2022, the movement’s statement said.

The Israeli government has said it possesses information indicating that the killing was an act of terrorism. Israel has not specified who might have been behind such an attack in the Arab Gulf state, although it has repeatedly accused Iran and its allies of seeking to target Israelis abroad.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called Kogan’s killing “a despicable antisemitic terrorist attack”. In taped remarks to cabinet ministers, he said that Israel would “exact justice” on whoever was responsible.

More Israelis and Jews have travelled to the UAE, an oil-rich autocracy next to the Persian Gulf, since the country formally opened ties with Israel in the 2020 Abraham Accords. The small Israeli and Jewish community there now has religious centres and even kosher catering businesses, in accordance with Jewish religious law.

But relations have grown chillier in the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which prompted popular outrage across the region. Emirati government statements discussing Kogan’s disappearance referred only to his Moldovan citizenship — not his Israeli nationality.

New York Times News Service