People usually think of incentivizing R&D in general, but patents also help to prevent trade secrets.
A trade secret can be kept secret indefinitely and can potentially be lost if the company loses interest or is shut down. Patents help encourage publishing advances in technology so that they eventually advance the public domain. If they weren't interested in that then they probably wouldn't make patents expire.
Also the Mossad is working a lot with the secret service in the U.S
I believe there is a deeper reason behind those actions that won't be revealed to us (it can also explain the lack of actions of the U.S towards this case)