Israeli hostage Sahar Baruch, who was kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack, was killed during a rescue operation in Gaza in December, the Israeli military confirmed on Wednesday.
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The army said in a statement: “We informed the Baruch family that their son Sahar, a hostage in Gaza, was killed during a rescue operation carried out by special forces on the night of December 8.”
The army added: “At this stage, we cannot determine the circumstances of his death and whether he was killed by fire from our forces or whether he was assassinated by Hamas.”
On December 9, Hamas announced the death of this hostage during the army’s attempt to rescue him, and published a video clip showing his remains.
The Association of Relatives of the Hostages and Kibbutz Beri, where the 25-year-old lived, confirmed his death.
His brother Idan was killed during a Hamas attack on October 7, while his parents and two other brothers fled the massacre on the kibbutz, where at least 85 people were killed.
The Hamas attack led to the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse count based on official Israeli data. The movement's commandos took about 250 hostages, 129 of whom are still being held in Gaza.
The nearly three-month-old war has claimed the lives of 22,313 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them women, teenagers and children, according to the latest report from the Hamas government.
