Engineering student Sahar Baruch held hostage by Hamas is dead

A 25-year-old Israeli hostage died after being held for nearly two months by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, according to reports Saturday.

The body of Sahar Baruch, an electrical engineering student kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 from his kibbutz in southern Israel was featured in a Hamas propaganda video released Friday.

Hamas claimed that he was killed in an Israeli Defense Forces operation to free hostages.

The IDF denied the claims, and said Baruch had been murdered by Hamas.

On Saturday, Baruch’s death was confirmed by members of Kibbutz Be’eri, where he lived with his family, and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

“It is with great sadness and a broken heart that we announce the murder of Sahar Baruch (25), who was kidnapped from his home by Hamas terrorists to Gaza on the Black Sabbath and murdered there,” said the community in a statement.

The Ben Gurion University student’s family are demanding the return of his remains in any future hostage release deal, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Baruch, whose brother Idan was murdered by Hamas during the Oct. 7 massacre, was considered missing for weeks, until his family received the message that he was being held captive by Hamas.

“Sahar was at home with his brother Idan at his mother’s house,” said an aunt in an interview with Israeli media Saturday. “They woke up in the morning, like the rest of us, from alerts and the explosions.They entered and closed themselves in the mamad [protected space] but couldn’t close the door,” so they closed it with a closet” She continued.

“When the fire started, three grenades were thrown into the mamad – Idan was hit and Sahar treated him for hours.”

The brothers decided to jump from the home when it began to burn, the aunt continued. “In the beginning, Idan jumped and probably near that he was shot and killed. Sahar stayed behind for a few more minutes to bring him the inhaler because Idan was asthmatic. For more than two weeks we did not know what happened to him, and then some information was received that he was not in Israeli territory.”

Stay on top of news out of the Israel-Hamas war and the global surge in antisemitism with The Post’s Israel War Update, delivered right to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Just before the Hamas attack, Baruch was looking forward to starting the school year, and was planning to look for a place to live in Be’er Sheva, a city in the Negev Desert.