Israel said on Sunday that a rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been murdered in what is believed to have been a targeted killing.

Zvi Kogan, who ran a kosher supermarket in Dubai, was found dead in Abu Dhabi after his abandoned car was discovered an hour away from his home.

The Israeli-Moldovan rabbi was an envoy of the orthodox Jewish organisation Chabad that seeks to build links with secular and other sects of Judaism.

Mr Kogan, 28, worked with Chabad emissaries to “expand Jewish life in the Emirates,” the organisation said in a statement.

On Sunday, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to punish the killers. “The murder of Zvi Kogan is a criminal anti-Semitic terrorist incident. The State of Israel will act in all of its abilities to bring to justice the criminals responsible for his death,” a statement from his office said.

‘Iran a suspect’

Israeli security experts told The Telegraph that suspicion for the crime immediately fell on Iran.

Oded Ailam, former head of counter-intelligence at Israel’s Mossad, said: “The case raises a wave of questions and speculation about what happened, with Iran immediately suspected of being behind the incident.

“The pattern of action attributed to the Iranians is well known: recruiting local or foreign criminals to carry out acts of sabotage, kidnapping or assassination.”

According to court documents and public statements by government officials, since 2020, Reuters reported that there have been at least 33 assassination or abduction attempts in the West in which local or Israeli authorities allege an Iran link. Among recent alleged targets was a Chabad centre in Athens.

The UAE’s Jewish community has been the fastest growing community in the Middle East since the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords opened ties between Israel and Arab states, including the UAE.

Hundreds of Israelis and Jews from the diaspora now call the UAE home, with multiple young rabbis such as Mr Kogan among those serving the community.