Israeli forces fought a string of battles with Hamas terrorists in northern Gaza on Saturday as they pressed ahead with the ground offensive, with troops being attacked in at least two instances from within schools, the military said.

Amid the continued fighting, Kibbutz Be’eri announced that its resident Sahar Baruch, who was kidnapped and taken hostage in Gaza on October 7, had been murdered while in captivity.

The statement did not detail how and when the 25-year-old died, but it came a day after Hamas released a propaganda video purporting to show his body.

“We demand the return of his body as part of any hostage deal. We won’t stop until everyone is home,” said a statement from the kibbutz, one of the worst hit communities in the October 7 assault on southern Israel, when terrorists stormed across the border, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians in their homes and at a music festival, and taking some 240 hostages.

Baruch, a Ben-Gurion University engineering student was with his grandmother, Geula Bachar, as well as his brother, Idan Baruch, 20, a soldier in the IDF’s Education Corps.

He ran back into his grandmother’s burning house to look for an inhaler for his brother.

Idan Baruch was fatally shot when he left the burning house, which he ran from because he was asthmatic and couldn’t breathe in the smoke. He and his grandmother were both killed by the terrorists, while Sahar was taken hostage to Gaza.

It is believed that 138 hostages remain in Gaza, although in recent days the IDF has confirmed the deaths of 18 of the hostages held by Hamas, due to new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

A further 105 civilian hostages were released from Hamas captivity in Gaza during a week-long truce: 81 Israelis, 23 Thai nationals and one Filipino. In exchange, Israel released 240 Palestinian security prisoners, all women and minors.

Earlier, four hostages were released, one hostage was freed, and two bodies were recovered.

On Friday, the IDF announced that two soldiers were seriously wounded in a failed attempt to rescue further hostages. It also said that so far 93 soldiers had been killed in the ground offensive.

Following the breakdown of the truce, the IDF resumed its ground offensive in Gaza aimed at destroying Hamas and securing the return of all the hostages. Troops have continued to tighten their hold on northern Gaza cities but also pushed into Khan Younis in southern Gaza with recent days seeing some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

Overnight the military said there had again been fierce clashes in the north, with the fighting showing how deeply entrenched the terrorists are inside the civilian fabric of Gaza.

At least two of the clashes took place inside a mosque and schools, including one run by the United Nations.

The IDF said Saturday that troops of the Kfir Infantry Brigade encountered a Hamas cell in a school in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood. The troops killed the gunmen and later found weapons and military equipment inside the classrooms.

Troops of the Armored Corps operating with the Paratroopers Brigade found and destroyed a tunnel shaft in Shejaiya, which the IDF says was part of a “wide” tunnel network. Another tunnel shaft in the area had an elevator, according to the IDF.

The IDF said troops of the Golani Brigade identified a number of Hamas operatives with anti-tank missiles approaching them in Shejaiya. The soldiers called in an airstrike, and a combat helicopter killed the operatives, the IDF said.

In Beit Hanoun, the IDF says the 5th Reserve Infantry Brigade came under fire by Hamas operatives shooting from a mosque and a UNRWA school.

The army also released footage showing soldiers finding a sniper rifle and ammunition hidden inside a large teddy bear during searches of a school in the Gaza Strip .In another nearby school, the IDF says the troops found weapons hidden inside bags bearing the UNRWA logo.

Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip at Israel has continued from other locations of southern and central Gaza in recent days, in areas where the IDF is not operating on the ground.

The army also said it carried out a series of airstrikes across the Strip against Hamas targets.

Residents reported airstrikes and shelling in Gaza’s north and south Saturday, including the city of Rafah, which lies near the Egyptian border.

The main hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah received 71 dead and 160 wounded over the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run health ministry said Saturday morning. In the southern city of Khan Younis, 62 dead and another 99 wounded were taken to Nasser Hospital in the past 24 hours, the ministry said. The numbers, like all the figures released by Hamas, could not be verified.

The overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,400, the majority of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory, whose counts do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, nor those killed by the hundreds of rockets fired at Israel that have fallen short in Gaza.  Israel has said that it believes it has killed more than 5,000 terrorists so far.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, accusing the terrorists of using civilians as human shields, and says it’s made considerable efforts with its evacuation orders to get civilians out of harm’s way.

The latest fighting came a day after the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, despite it being backed by the vast majority of Security Council members and many other nations. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining.

Despite growing international pressure, the Biden administration remains opposed to an open-ended ceasefire, arguing it would enable Hamas to continue posing a threat to Israel. Officials have expressed misgivings in recent days about the rising civilian death toll and dire humanitarian crisis, but have not pushed publicly for Israel to wind down the war, now in its third month.

“We have not given a firm deadline to Israel, not really our role,” deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told a security forum a day before the US veto in the UN Security Council. “That said, we do have influence, even if we don’t have ultimate control over what happens on the ground in Gaza.”

Nevertheless, reports have emerged that the US wanted Israel to wrap up this stage of its offensive by the end of the year.

Israeli officials have indicated that the military needs another three to four weeks to complete its current offensive in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis and a similar amount of time after that to wrap up the first stage of the war against Hamas.