Police confirm man killed in shark attack; victim named as Barak Tzach, 45
Wife denies reports her husband had been carrying dead fish that attracted the shark off the Hadera coast, says he was just documenting them
A man was killed in a shark attack off the coast of Hadera, police confirmed Wednesday, after human remains were positively identified by forensics experts.
The victim was named as 45-year-old Barak Tzach, a father of four from the central city of Petah Tikva.
Tzach’s wife Sarit Tzach wrote on Facebook that her husband had gone to the beach on Monday after work so that he could document the sharks, and denied reports that he had been carrying dead fish that attracted the predator.
“He entered the sea equipped with a snorkel, mask, fins and a GoPro camera — without anything else, and certainly not with fish or bait, contrary to the rumors,” she wrote.
“Barak goes in the water to dive and document sharks, not to feed them or play with them,” she said, adding that a fisherman who was at the scene told her that her husband had photographed the sharks from a distance, but didn’t touch them or feed them.
“When they started to get too close to him, he used the GoPro camera stick to gently push them away,” Sarit wrote. “The fisherman shouted to him to get back to the beach, and Barak began to swim slowly in his direction — and then he was attacked.”
Tzach was identified a day after police said that they recovered “findings” during their ongoing search for the missing man who had been attacked by a shark.
The search on Hadera Stream Beach enlisted rescue divers, jet skis and helicopters to find the missing man. Police closed the beach as well as nearby beaches to swimmers until further notice.
People on the beach filmed Monday’s incident, an extremely rare shark attack in Israeli waters, with their phones.
One man could be heard exclaiming, “Wow, wow, he’s with the shark, he’s fighting him,” as the man was seen in the distance. “They’re eating him, eating the man… Can’t see him.”
An eyewitness to the attack told Channel 12 news that Tzach shouted: “‘I’ve been bitten, I’ve been bitten.’ He waved his hands in the air, and after a few minutes the sharks dragged him toward them.”
The woman told the TV network that she saw “three sharks and a huge pool of blood. Since then, it’s like he disappeared. We saw it all happen, and then he suddenly disappeared.”
דיווחים דרמטיים על צוללן שננשך ככה"נ על ידי כריש בחוף הים בחדרה. בנתיים הבחור לא נמצא. חיפושים כעת בחוף. ואווו pic.twitter.com/DfbABlFuj1
— שלמה ⛈️ מזג אוויר (@MezgAvirIL) April 21, 2025
It was just the third recorded shark attack in Israel, according to Yigael Ben-Ari, head of the Parks and Nature Authority’s marine ranger force. One person was killed in an attack in the 1940s.
The area, where warm water released by a nearby power plant flows into the sea, has for years attracted dozens of sharks between the months of October and May. Ben-Ari said swimming is prohibited in the area, but swimmers enter the water anyway.
Dusky and sandbar sharks, which frequent the area, are not known to attack humans.
Israelis flocked in large numbers to the beach during the weeklong holiday of Passover, sharing the waters with a dozen or more sharks. Some tugged on the sharks’ fins, while others threw them fish to eat.
Dusky sharks can grow to four meters (13 feet) long and weigh about 350 kilograms (750 pounds). Sandbar sharks are smaller, growing to about 2.5 meters (8 feet) and 100 kilograms (220 pounds).
Over the past few days, fish die-offs in the Hadera Stream and the nearby Alexander Stream have attracted sharks to the shores of Hadera and Beit Yannai. The sharks eat dead, sick and wounded fish as they enter the sea, helping keep natural waters clean.
The Nature and Parks Authority on Monday said it “repeats its warning… against interacting with sharks. We again call on the public not to approach the sharks, which are protected animals.”
Agencies contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.