You swim 100m off Israel and think you’re safe: 40-year-old dies as 20 dusky sharks turn feral

Tour boats idle, cameras roll, and fish scraps drift on the current.

On an April afternoon, a recreational snorkeller joined the spectacle. What followed now forces hard questions about feeding wildlife at sea.

A calm swim turns chaotic

Witnesses say the 40-year-old tourist swam and filmed roughly 100 metres from the beach at Hadera, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. A tight group of dusky sharks circled him. One animal appeared to lunge at his action camera, then the scene unravelled. Shouts for help, thrashing fins, water stained red. Rescue boats rushed out, but search teams later recovered only small remains, which confirmed the victim’s identity.

Researchers have documented the first fatal incident worldwide involving dusky sharks and a diver, during what they characterise as a feeding frenzy.

Dusky sharks grow to around 3 metres (10ft) and look formidable, yet they carry a reputation for avoiding people. The episode in Hadera shows how rapidly that reputation can shift when animals learn to associate humans with food and when many individuals compete in a tight space.

How a ‘harmless’ label unravels

The shoreline off Hadera now attracts large numbers of sharks in winter. Scientists point to a predictable, human-made lure: warm water discharging from coastal infrastructure, which draws fish and, in turn, predators. Local operators have capitalised on guaranteed sightings by dropping scraps to hold sharks near boats for paying customers. Add household and fish-market waste washing into the same waters and you create a permanent buffet. Over several seasons, sharks start treating vessels and people as cues for food.

Warm water and waste reshape a coastline

Regular inflows of warmer water change where fish gather and when large predators arrive. Dusky sharks, normally wide-roaming, stack up near the outfalls through the colder months because the area offers simple hunting and steady calories. Dozens can assemble within a few hundred metres of shore. Crowding follows. So does competition.

Conditioning and the rise of ‘begging’ sharks

When people hand out fish or toss bycatch overboard, sharks learn. Approaches shift from wary to assertive. Divers report animals swimming straight at cameras and hands, sometimes brushing bodies to test for food. Biologists describe this as a conditioned “begging” behaviour. It is not aggression in the classic sense; it is a search pattern reinforced by rewards. The danger emerges when a mistake occurs in dense company. One animal nicks a camera or a fin; others surge, driven by motion, blood, and the scramble for a share. A frenzy starts not because sharks target a person as prey, but because they compete for a perceived resource.

Competition near provisioning sites can override a species’ usual caution around people and rapidly escalate tentative contact into dangerous multiple bites.

What scientists think happened in Hadera

Analysts who reviewed photos and witness accounts concluded the sharks were dusky sharks, based on dorsal-fin size and shape. They propose a sequence of “juxtaposed” bites. First came a reflex, misdirected snap, probably at the camera, consistent with learned begging. Movement and cues then triggered a rush from several sharks. In that crush, repeated bites followed, not from a single hunter, but from many animals competing with little discrimination.

This chain is rare, and that rarity matters. It takes a specific set of ingredients: a high density of large sharks, sustained provisioning, low visibility around a person in the water, and the sudden appearance of blood or frantic motion. Hadera had all four.

What must change now

Researchers argue for simple, enforceable steps that strike at the cause rather than the symptom. They emphasise behaviour, not species. Remove the learned cue, and the risk falls.

• Total, enforced ban on feeding sharks from shore or vessels, including “attraction” by dumping scraps.
• Licensing rules for tourist boats that prohibit chumming and require distance limits during shark aggregations.
• Timed closures around warm-water outfalls when sharks concentrate in winter.
• Waste-management patrols to stop fish offal and food waste from entering nearshore waters.
• Clear signage on beaches and marinas warning against entering water where sharks are actively feeding.
• Mandatory reporting and monitoring to track shark numbers and human activity near aggregation points.

Eliminate artificial feeding and the conditioned “begging” response fades; without the cue, close approaches and frenzies become far less likely.

Advice for swimmers, snorkellers and skippers

• Avoid entering the water where boats have recently thrown fish or bait, even if no sharks are visible.
• Keep at least 300 metres from warm-water outfalls or areas where sharks aggregate seasonally.
• Do not hold cameras or fish near your body; objects in your hands can draw investigative snaps.
• Stay in groups and maintain a vertical profile; if sharks arrive, back away slowly to a boat or shore.
• Skippers: never retain sharks near clients using scraps; cut engines and move on if multiple sharks converge.
• If blood enters the water, exit calmly at once; avoid splashing or frantic kicks.

Why provisioning transforms risk

Feeding wildlife changes who gets close, how many arrive, and how they behave. With sharks, the shift can be stark because their senses lock onto odour plumes and low-frequency vibrations. Food input teaches an association between humans and reward. Crowding amplifies mistakes. In natural encounters, a single dusky might cruise past respectfully and melt into the blue. In a fed aggregation, twenty animals jockey for a handout. The chance that one misreads a hand, a camera, or a fin increases dramatically.

Context that matters beyond one beach

Dusky sharks rarely feature in serious incidents worldwide, and they do not sit alongside tiger, bull, or white sharks in typical risk rankings. That background explains why Hadera shocks. Yet the label “harmless” obscures a basic rule: any large, toothed predator can become dangerous when people habituate it to handouts and crowd it during feeding. Shark tourism can deliver income and foster appreciation, but the method matters. Non-feeding viewing, with set distances and time limits, produces far fewer close approaches and keeps behaviours wilder—and safer.

A final note on language. A group of sharks is sometimes called a “shiver”, a term that captures both fascination and fear. It also hints at our role. If we turn beaches into buffets, the shiver becomes a queue. The Hadera case shows how fast that queue can turn on a swimmer when competition spikes. Coastal authorities now face a grounded choice: clamp down on provisioning, redesign tours, clean up waste flows, and set seasonal boundaries—or risk another roar of fins at the surface, another family waiting on the sand.