The remains of an Israeli man who died as a result of a shark attack off the coast of Hadera were retrieved by rescue divers. The missing person, Barak Tzach, 40, was a resident of Petah Tikva and father of four children. He arrived at the area to fish at the mouth of the Hadera River after his work day in the north of the country. He took a break from fishing to enter the water and film the sharks. His truck and personal belongings were found on the beach. The search operations involve Israeli navy boats, maritime police, and specialized divers from the Lahava rescue unit. As a precaution, the beaches of Hadera, Mikhmoret, Beit Yanai, and Neurim remain closed to swimmers until further notice. According to initial assessments, the fisherman was diving with a belt to carry his catch, which could have attracted sharks.
When the sharks started getting too close, he used the stick of the GoPro to “push them away,” his family told Israel National News.
He was heard screaming, “They’re biting me!” before being dragged further out to sea on Monday, according to The Times of Israel.
“They’re eating him, eating the man!” one terrified witness cried, according to a disturbing video circulating on social media.
His remains were discovered 24 hours later. Yigael Ben-Ari, head of marine rangers at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, said this would be just the third shark attack recorded in Israel in the last 80 years.
Every winter, a group of 20-30 dusky and sandbar sharks, referred to as a ‘frenzy,’ gather off the coast of Hadera. The sharks are becoming increasingly rare as the Mediterranean suffers from overfishing. Though this has been witnessed for several decades, scientists only began studying the phenomenon and collecting data two years ago.
Though unsure of the precise reason for the yearly appearance, researchers believe it is due to the Orot Rabin power plant. The effluent of hot water from the plant maintains the sea near the plant at ten degrees warmer than the surrounding waters. Nonetheless, shark gatherings have not been observed in similar locations. The sharks are becoming a tourist attraction.
The dusky shark is about 13 feet long, weighs about 770 lbs, and has slightly rounded fins. The sandbar sharks have smaller fins, weigh about 220 lbs, and are about 8 feet long. Both species are at risk of extinction.
The Tikunei Zohar (Tinyanya Tikkun 43), an esoteric book attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the first century CE, explains that this increase of fish signifies a specific stage of the Messianic process, in which the Messiah from the House of Joseph and the Messiah of the house of David, two separate stages, join together.
The Messiah from the house of Joseph is a practical building up of the land that precedes a miraculous period, the Messiah from the House of David, which includes the construction of the Temple. The period ushered in by the appearance of fish is described as a period of hamtakat hadinim (sweetening of the judgments), symbolized by the fish’s ability to make seawater potable.
Such unusual natural phenomena can also become material for political conspiracy theories. In December 2010, several shark attacks occurred off the South Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. Following the attacks, a guest on a popular Egyptian television show blamed the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, for embedding GPS tracking chips into the fins of the sharks and controlling the sharks, leading them to attack. The Israeli foreign ministry, in response, suggested that the Egyptian TV host had seen the movie “Jaws” one time too many times.
