Wife of Israeli man killed by shark: ‘He only wanted to film them’

The widow of a man killed in a rare shark attack defends him against online speculation, saying he entered the sea to film — not provoke — the animals.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

The widow of an Israeli man killed in a rare shark attack earlier this week defended her husband, claiming that he had gone into the water to film the sharks and had not baited them.

In recent days, lured by warm water near the Hadera power plant and fish die-offs in nearby streams that feed into the Mediterranean Sea, sharks have been approaching the shore near Hadera.

Viral videos of Israelis trying to pet the sharks sparked outrage among many who said that those nearing the sharks – despite the beach being closed and clear instructions to stay away from the animals – were tempting fate.

A video of an Israeli man being fatally attacked by a shark circulated on social media on Monday, though the identity of the man was initially not made public.

The remains of Barak Tzach, a 45-year-old father of four from Petah Tikvah, were positively identified by Israel’s national forensic institute on Wednesday. Authorities said in appears that he was attacked by three sharks.

Tzach’s widow, Sarit, wrote on Facebook that her husband had traveled to the beach to document the sharks. “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 said.

Sarit stressed that her husband entered the water to “dive and document sharks, not to feed them or play with them,” and that “when [the sharks] started to get too close to him, he used the GoPro camera stick to gently push them away.”

A fisherman who witnessed her husband’s demise recounted that once the sharks approached him, he began swimming back to shore but was viciously attacked, she added.

Deadly shark attacks in Israel are incredibly rare. The last time an Israeli was killed by a shark was during the 1940s.