The aunt of Sahar Baruch, an Israeli hostage killed in a failed Israel Defense Forces rescue attempt, said Thursday that the family had been afraid his life would end in this manner after he was kidnapped by the Hamas terror group on October 7.

Merav Barkai told Radio 103FM 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.”

“We were scared from the beginning that there would be a military attempt to rescue him and it would end this way,” she added. “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 noted that the family was 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 cost of human life.”

“We can say from our bitter experience — as soon as it’s possible, do everything [to bring back the hostages]. It seems to me like the military option has proven itself less effective in the matter of the hostages,” she said.

She said that the family was less interested in how he died, and more in his experiences in captivity.

“How he managed there, who he was with, what he experienced in his final days. This information keeps us sane,” she said, adding that while the family was updated on some of the details, most of the information was unknown to them. “Probably, some of the time he was with other people, and some of the time he was alone.”

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

Hamas at the time claimed that Baruch was killed by the IDF, publishing graphic footage of his body, along with equipment apparently belonging to Israeli forces.

Baruch was abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7 as they attacked Kibbutz Be’eri, murdering dozens and kidnapping scores of residents.

His body remains held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It is believed that 129 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November. Four hostages were released prior to that, and one was rescued by troops. The bodies of eight hostages have also been recovered and three hostages were mistakenly killed by the military.

The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 23 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

Another three people have been listed as missing since October 7, and their fates are still unknown.

Hamas is also holding the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015, respectively.