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In Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, the threat was a giant great white shark — a predator weighing between half a ton and a full ton, reaching over 16 feet in length, with serrated teeth and an aggressive hunt along the beaches of New England. In Hadera’s local version , the stars are the sandbar and dusky sharks. They are sharks, but smaller, less aggressive and content to feed mostly on small fish.
Experts describe these two species as relatively friendly; if left unprovoked, they pose little threat to humans. 8 View gallery Sharks off coast of Hadera ( Photo: JACK GUEZ ) Unlike their cinematic counterparts, the sandbar and dusky sharks are not terrorizing swimmers with their jaws. Since sharks were first spotted near the mouth of the Hadera Stream in 2001 — an area warmed by water discharged from a nearby power plant — there have been no recorded incidents involving humans and sharks.
And it’s not for lack of provocation: the internet is full of videos showing people pulling sharks from the water by the tail, attempting to ride them, falling onto them or trying to feed them dead fish. While these sharks are not known for aggression, even they have their limits. The local version of Jaws comes without horror-movie music or Hollywood scripting.
A figure is seen in the water not far from the shore, as someone filming narrates the scene: "Wow, wow, he's with the shark, he's fighting it! They're eating him!" Another bystander remarks, "He ate the guy," while a third concludes: "You can’t even see the guy anymore." Like hooking an aircraft carrier When we arrived at the Hadera beach where a man was attacked by a shark on Tuesday , search teams were still combing the water for the missing diver. The man, who was filmed being attacked, drowned shortly after, and by Tuesday afternoon — nearly 24 hours later — remains were found among the rocks near the power station and sent for examination at the National Center of Forensic Medicine.
By Wednesday afternoon, police confirmed the remains belonged to Barak Tzach , a father of four from Petah Tikva. His wife, Sarit, announced his death on Facebook, writing that he had entered the water to dive and document sharks, "not to feed them or play with them." 8 View gallery Sharks attack diver Barak Tzach off coast of Hadera ( Photo: Screengrab ) The seasonal congregation of sharks off Hadera is well known.
This stretch of coast, under the jurisdiction of the city of Hadera, is officially closed to swimmers. Warning signs posted every few dozen feet caution against entering the water. City inspectors patrol regularly to remove bathers, and rangers from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) conduct educational activities to promote safe behavior around the sharks.
Still, videos online show a different reality — no matter how many warnings are issued, there are always those who wade into the water, ignoring the risks. Some even try to ride, feed, hit or pet the sharks, dismissing warnings as if they were invented by some sinister "deep state" of bureaucrats controlling the area. It’s important to stress that Tzach did not behave irresponsibly.
Like many others, he simply came to dive. There are clear rules for interacting with Hadera’s sharks, and when followed, they keep swimmers safe. This is no secret beach; it is well known to fishing enthusiasts.
At the site, we found Morris Elimelech from Afula and Shlomi Turgeman from Migdal HaEmek sitting on chairs, watching the bells attached to their fishing rods — a tug on the line rings the small bells. "You just type 'Fishermen's Beach' into Waze," Elimelech said, "and it directs you straight to Olga-Hadera Fishermen’s Beach. Every fisherman knows this spot.
Wait — we have a bite!" 8 View gallery Barak Tzach ( Photo: Private album ) Remarkably, even as police boats and fire rescue jet skis scoured the water for Tzach’s remains, fishermen continued undeterred. The presence of sharks in the water seemed to concern no one. During a press statement by police spokesman Chief Superintendent Aryeh Doron, who announced that officers had cleared curious onlookers and fishermen from the beach, people could still be seen wandering the area behind him.
The following day, fishing continued. Dudi Shani, a physics teacher from Ramat Gan, had just caught a large blue runner. "Twice before, I hooked sharks here," he said.
"Suddenly your rod gets pulled so violently, it feels like you’ve hooked an aircraft carrier." And what happened then? "The sharks tear the line and free themselves. But there’s never been any trouble.
Divers come here all the time to see sharks, and the sharks don’t bother them. Not every shark is the shark from Jaws." Selfie with a shark In June 2021, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) published a document titled "Regulating Human Activity in the Shark Gathering Area at Hadera's Warm Water Outlet for Nature Conservation and Public Safety.
" The paper outlined the unique phenomenon of shark congregations near the coastal power station and proposed managing the area more carefully. Recommendations included a seasonal ban on fishing — both from land and sea — in the shark zone, restrictions on motorized vessels and the establishment of a safe viewing area to allow both sharks and humans to coexist at a safe distance. 8 View gallery Sharks off coast of Hadera ( Photo: Elad Gershgorn ) Dr.
Ateret Shabtai, a Mediterranean marine ecologist at SPNI and one of the authors of the document, said the chaos began about four years earlier. "More and more people heard there were sharks in Hadera and came to see them," she said. "People filmed videos and posted them online, which only fueled the phenomenon.
Environmental groups launched a project called 'Sharks in the Current' to educate visitors, handing out flyers and giving talks on proper shark-watching behavior — watching from a distance, no feeding, no touching, no teasing. But it quickly became clear that it wasn’t working." Instead, Shabtai said, behavior became reckless.
"More people waded into the water trying to grab sharks, take selfies with them — things you wouldn't believe," she said. "Motorboats started showing up, even though they’re banned within 300 meters of the shore. Fishing became a hazard too, with sharks spotted swimming with hooks lodged in their mouths.
" SPNI proposed a legal solution: declaring the area, less than one square kilometer in size, a "protected natural value" during the shark congregation season from October to May. "This would allow authorities to set and enforce rules to protect both people and sharks," said Shabtai. "But that requires government action.
" Who exactly should act? "The environmental protection minister has the authority to declare the area protected during the shark season, enabling enforcement." And what happened with SPNI’s recommendations? "Unfortunately, nothing." 8 View gallery Police teams searching for Tzach's remains ( Photo: Elad Gershgorn ) During the Passover holiday, the situation worsened.
Videos circulated showing a young woman falling off a paddleboard and striking a shark with her paddle, and children swimming near sharks while a father shouted: "Don’t move!" One girl shouted back, half excited, half afraid: "He touched me, Dad, he touched me!" The father repeated: "Don’t move! Don’t move!" Yigal Ben-Ari, head of the marine unit at the INPA, said a ranger was sent to the beach last Saturday to explain how to behave around sharks. "We saw the videos online and came immediately," he said. "Our job is to protect the sharks, which are legally designated a protected natural value.
Every year around November, when the sharks gather, we issue public warnings: Do not swim near sharks. Do not touch or harass them." A video from the INPA shows a ranger standing ankle-deep in water, surrounded by at least 20 swimmers — mostly young people — trying to get selfies with the sharks.
"Please don't disturb them," the ranger pleaded. "Don’t touch them, don’t feed them. Anyone who does so will face consequences.
" His warnings were largely ignored. Ben-Ari sounded frustrated: "This is not a nature reserve, and we have no enforcement authority here. We can only explain.
" 8 View gallery Tzach's remains taken from the scene ( Photo: ZAKA ) City inspectors face similar challenges. Boris Kosinovsky, head of Hadera’s enforcement and security division, said patrols visited the beach every hour to hour and a half during the holiday. "We have seven kilometers of coastline, but only two designated swimming beaches," he explained.
"Our inspectors move constantly. They order people out of the water, and most comply — but as soon as inspectors leave, people go right back in. Social media videos keep attracting more and more visitors.
We are doing everything we can, but we’re very limited; we have no authority in the water." Public messaging may also be part of the problem. Speaking with a fisherman, a local named Yaakov from Olga stopped by and asked, "What did the authorities expect?" Without waiting for an answer, he added: "They told everyone the sharks are friendly and harmless, even called them vegetarians.
What kind of ‘vegetarian shark’ eats a person?" Jaws? Not here We eventually reached Dr. Ziv Zemach-Shamir, a researcher at the Morris Kahn Marine Research Station of the University of Haifa. Based in Kibbutz Sdot Yam, the station conducts ecological studies focusing on Israel’s coastline and the eastern Mediterranean basin.
Zemach-Shamir specializes in sharks. "We are trying to understand the distribution of sharks arriving here," he explained. "We fit them with acoustic and satellite transmitters to track their movements, conduct genetic testing, monitor pregnancies, take blood samples and perform ultrasounds.
This means we dive there quite a lot. We have never been attacked or had any issues." 8 View gallery Dr.
Ziv Zemach-Shamir ( Photo: Yair Sagi ) According to him, the sharks typically arrive around November and leave by May, when water temperatures exceed 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees Fahrenheit). Most of the sandbar sharks spotted are males, while the dusky sharks are primarily pregnant females. "We don't yet know exactly where their fertilization occurs, but we estimate it happens near Turkey," he said.
Zemach-Shamir is often called into television studios whenever a shark attack occurs somewhere around the world. The last time was in June 2023, when a tiger shark killed a Russian tourist off Hurghada’s beaches in Egypt . The attack happened in front of beachgoers as the tourist swam nearby.
When asked if Israelis should fear the sharks off Hadera, Zemach-Shamir firmly said there’s no comparison. Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play : https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store : https://bit.
ly/3ZL7iNv "There really is no comparison," he reiterated this week. "We don’t have great whites or tiger sharks here. The sandbar and dusky sharks are not aggressive toward humans.
Sandbars are shy and move away from people. Duskies are also not known to be aggressive. In all our dives, we have never felt any sign of hostility.
" However, he warned that with dozens — sometimes hundreds — of people crowding the waters during weekends and holidays, often behaving recklessly, incidents can happen. "They are wild animals," he emphasized. "A wild animal in distress can attack or bite.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen that shark attacks can have tragic outcomes. Still, aggressive sharks are rare — less than 10 percent of over 530 known shark species are considered dangerous to humans." 8 View gallery ( Photo: JACK GUEZ / AFP ) The Environmental Protection Ministry issued a statement noting that the waters off Hadera, where most sharks are found, fall within the jurisdiction of the Hadera Port area and the operational zone of the Orot Rabin power station.
Swimming there is prohibited, and enforcement falls under municipal authority. Sharks are protected wildlife, and if harm is done to them, enforcement lies with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, which has warned the public about the presence of sharks and the dangers of entering the water during this period. The ministry further stated that individuals must take full personal responsibility for their actions and exercise extreme caution when approaching wild animals.
Regarding the idea of declaring the area a "protected natural value," the ministry clarified that this planning tool was used for the Palmahim Slide, an area outside Israel’s sovereign waters where formal nature reserves cannot be declared. The Hadera estuary, by contrast, lies within Israel’s sovereign waters, making the designation inapplicable. >.
