Family of hostage killed in failed rescue attempt: ‘We were afraid this would happen’

The family of Sahar Baruch, the Israeli hostage killed in a failed IDF rescue attempt, says they were afraid his life would end in such a manner after he was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.

His aunt Merav Barkai tells 103 FM radio that there is a “terrible sense of missed opportunity… when we received the notification that he had been killed, it could have been a different notification. This was a rescue attempt; we were so close to being there.”

“We were scared from the beginning that there would be a military attempt to rescue him and it would end this way,” she adds. “It’s incredibly sad and difficult. Hostages were freed, people left there alive, we felt like we were close, just a step away from that embrace. On October 7 we lost my mother and Edan, Sahar’s brother. It is a sense of loss we should not have to feel.”

She notes that the family is sad to hear that IDF soldiers were wounded in the attempt to rescue Baruch, and that while they desperately want to retrieve his body for burial, it should “not come at the price of human life.”

The IDF said yesterday that it does not know if Baruch was murdered by Hamas or killed by Israeli fire during the failed hostage rescue on December 8.