Israeli-Canadian businessman killed in Egypt in potential antisemitic attack

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An Israeli-Canadian businessman has been killed in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, with early evidence suggesting the attack may have been an antisemitic hate crime that was also motivated by anger over the war in Gaza.

Israeli media identified the victim was Ziv Kipper, the owner of an Egyptian fruit and vegetable company, who regularly entered Egypt on his Canadian passport. The Times of Israel reported that he had been shot dead Tuesday by unknown gunmen. His wife, Oksana Kipper, confirmed his death in an interview with the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, said that “the victim was a businessman with Canadian-Israeli citizenship” and the Israeli embassy in Cairo was in contact with the Egyptian authorities investigating the case.

Egypt’s al-Ahram newspaper reported that the country’s Interior Ministry was investigating the “criminal” murder of a Canadian businessman in Alexandria.

Jean-Pierre Godbout, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, said the Canadian government “is aware of the reports of the death of a Canadian citizen in Egypt” and is reaching out to local authorities for more information.

Egypt’s Ministry of Information said in a statement Wednesday that “a Canadian businessman permanently residing in the country was exposed to a criminal shooting incident in Alexandria. Legal measures were taken and an investigative team was formed to uncover the circumstances of the incident.”

A security source said Mr. Kipper was killed “with the motive of robbery,” Reuters reported.

But Mr. Kipper was not robbed, his wife told the Israeli public broadcaster. She said he was killed while conducting his daily affairs, saying she is certain his death is related to his Jewish identity.

Ms. Kipper said her husband will be buried in Israel, and she intends to leave Egypt with her daughter.

Although she is neither Jewish nor Israeli, “I am the wife of an Israeli, so it is possible that on this basis they will want to harm me,” she said.

Shortly after reports of Mr. Kipper’s death first appeared online, a claim of responsibility began circulating from a previously unknown group calling itself the “Vanguards of the Liberation – the Martyrs of Mohamed Salah.” The group said it had killed Mr. Kipper in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza and claimed Mr. Kipper and his business were a front for Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.

The group appears to have drawn its name from Mohamed Salah, an Egyptian policeman who shot three Israeli soldiers dead at the border between the two countries last year before he was killed.

Mr. Kipper’s business, O.K Group, exports frozen okra, corn, beans and other vegetables from Egypt, in addition to fruits such as strawberries, according to its website and social-media posts. On LinkedIn, the Alexandria-headquartered company is described as one of Egypt’s largest corporate food exporters, selling produce from its own farms, with offices in Ukraine and Israel.

Mr. Kipper’s LinkedIn profile says he obtained a bachelor’s degree in international business from Seneca Polytechnic, a Toronto college, in the early 1980s. He posted images from Niagara Falls and Toronto last summer to his corporate Facebook page.

But most of his posts were related to the horrors of the war in Ukraine over the past two years.

He donated to groups that provided assistance to Jews in Ukraine, said Uri Oholy, who knew Mr. Kipper as a friend for more than 15 years.

“He was a great supporter of Israel and of Jewish communities in Ukraine,” Mr. Oholy said. “He was very dedicated to Jewish education, to poor people, to the local communities in Ukraine.”

Mr. Kipper had lived in Ukraine and married a Ukrainian woman. He maintained close ties to the cities of Kyiv and Zhytomyr.

But his main work was in agriculture, Mr. Oholy said, describing Mr. Kipper’s ambition to increase Egyptian agricultural exports. He had a “personal vision to prevent the world from going hungry,” Mr. Oholy said.

Mr. Kipper maintained farms in the south of Egypt and arranged the logistics to ship up the Nile to Alexandria, where he used the port to export to Europe and elsewhere.

He spoke fluent Hebrew and did not hide his Jewish identity, regularly sending Shabbat greetings in Hebrew, Mr. Oholy said.

Antisemitic hate crimes have been on the rise worldwide since the start of the war in Gaza.

Mr. Oholy cast doubt on the claims that Mr. Kipper was connected to Israeli intelligence.

“There is no doubt that he wasn’t connected to the Israeli Mossad or something like that. They never work this way with businessmen,” he said.

Mr. Kipper’s death was “such a tragedy. It should wake the world” to the perils of rising antisemitism, he said.

With reporting by Ian Bailey in Ottawa and Orly Halpern in Jerusalem.