It may well be that, given the reports that
attackers had been staying at a guest house at the Jewish center for 15 days before the attacks, that the Rabbi and his wife were willing supporters of the operation, then were sacrificed in order to have the appropriate bloody shirts to wave before the media. The four-person discrepancy noted above makes perfect sense if four of the attackers were recognizable or identifiable as Israelis, and were declared to be dead hostages to conceal their roles in the operation.