Edan, Sahar & Geula: Savta & 2 grandsons slain, captured, killed

On October 7, Cpl. Edan Baruch, 20, was slain as was his grandmother, Geula Bachar, 81, in Kibbutz Be’eri, while his brother, Sahar Baruch, 25, was taken hostage to Gaza.

Sahar was slain in captivity, and the IDF confirmed his death on December 9, 2023. In January 2024, the IDF said that Sahar had been killed amid a failed rescue attempt in Gaza, without determining exactly what caused his death.

On October 30, 2025, Hamas returned Sahar’s remains to Israel. He was laid to rest in Kibbutz Be’eri on November 2, 2025.

Edan and Sahar were survived by their parents, Tammy and Roni, and siblings Guy and Niv. Geula is survived by her husband, Yitzhak, five children — Yossi, Rivka, Tammy, Oved and Meirav — and 20 of her 22 grandchildren. Her daughter, Naomi, died in 1992 at age 22.

Edan and Sahar were together at home when Hamas terrorists broke into their house, and threw grenades into their safe room, wounding Edan. The terrorists set their home on fire, and they climbed out the window to escape. Sahar went back to get an inhaler for Edan, who was asthmatic, and was captured, and Edan was shot dead.

Yitzhak, Geula’s husband and Edan and Sahar’s grandfather, told the Kan public radio that when the sirens first started, they went to their bomb shelter in their own home, but when they realized terrorists had infiltrated the kibbutz, they split up into different rooms to try and hide. When Yitzhak was eventually rescued, he discovered that Geula had been killed.

Geula grew up in Givatayim, the third of six children, and later moved to Herzliya, according to a kibbutz obituary. She enjoyed running and soccer, and she left school after 8th grade to help support her family. At 18 she enlisted in the IDF and was part of a unit which served in Kibbutz Shluchot, where she met Yitzhak. They wed in 1963 and moved two years later to Be’eri, where they raised their family, and where she worked caring for the elderly.

Edan was an IDF soldier in the Education Corps who had only recently finished basic training after enlisting in August, and had dreams of pursuing a culinary career. He was born in Be’eri — literally, after his mother failed to reach the hospital in time, according to a kibbutz obituary. He enjoyed watching anime, playing dungeons and dragons and chess, and he always had a book in his hand, especially while traveling on trains. After finishing high school, Edan did national service in a dog therapy facility in Karkur before working with autistic children in Haifa.

Sahar, who had recently returned from a long trip to South America, was slated to start studies in electrical engineering at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba just two weeks after he was kidnapped. Also born and raised in Be’eri, Sahar was described as quiet and close with his three brothers in a kibbutz obituary. He was interested in judo, cycling and kayaking and he played the organ and the trumpet and excelled in chess. He served in the Israel Navy during his mandatory service, cutting his long locks and donating them. During his travels in South America, he grew his hair again, and planned to again cut and donate it when he started his studies.

Geula and Yitzhak’s son, Maj. Gen. Yossi Bachar, who retired in 2018 after serving as the commander of the IDF’s General Staff Corps, told the Kan public broadcaster that he fought against the terrorists in Be’eri all day, killing at least 15 of them, before he went to find his family, and discovered his mother had been killed.

A feeling of guilt that he couldn’t save her, “creeped in as I started to understand the situation. I wasn’t there for her in those moments.” But, added Bachar, who since October 7 has served as deputy commander of the Southern Command, “the intensity that I’m currently living in doesn’t allow me to take those thoughts to so many places — it’s an excellent escape mechanism.”

Amid the war, he said, he managed to sit shiva for his mother for about half an hour total, “but it was important, because it gave me the opportunity to tell those around me who that woman is, and what she did,” he said, declining to expand further, as he held back tears.

Merav Barkai, Sahar’s aunt, described him to the Ynet news site as “sharp, smart and realistic with a sense of humor, who was also an excellent chess player” and loved anime films and science fiction. The brothers, she said, were very close, and tried to protect each other on October 7.

At Sahar’s funeral in November 2025, his mother, Tami, described him as “a traveler, chess player, kayaker, scholar, nerd, steel mechanic, and much more.”

“I had hoped for you that there would be new identities, like the electrical engineer you wanted to be, a boyfriend, a father, and so much more, but that will no longer happen,” she continued. “We have many memories, but not enough memories together.”

A memorial page set up for Edan said he was a member of the Noar HaOved youth group as a kid, and later became a youth leader in the group and was “devoted to education.” Before enlisting in the army, he spent a gap year doing national service at a therapeutic dog kennel.

Ilana Blumberg, whose daughter was serving with Edan in the IDF, said she told her that “Edan came back describ­ing ​’Darom Adom,’ his plea­sure in the way the whole south turned to fields of red blos­soms in the sea­son of the anemone flow­ers. He told the group how much he loved his home on Kib­butz Be’eri, that it was where he want­ed to live always.”

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