evening. reporting from washington, i'm jim acosta. "the whole story" with anderson p cooper is next. p cooper is next. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com has entered a new phase. what that means for the more than 200 people held hostage in gaza is unclear. most of those hostages were taken on october 7 from israeli communities, or kibbutzim, close to the gaza border. on a kibbutz called nir oz, it's estimated a quarter of the 400 or so people who live there were either killed or captured. the whole story of what happened at nir oz is only now really coming to light. tonight we want you to meet those who survived the attack at nir oz who are now fighting for answers about what happened to their missing loved ones and neighbors. this was the nir oz kibbutz before october 7. noam peri: nir oz has huge and beautiful fields all around it. many of them are potatoes, but some peanuts and carrots and many, many othther crops.. gaia kalderon: it's like you walk without shoes with your dogs. noam peri: it's one of the places that you could still come and hear the birds singing. hadas kalderon: it's a paradise. anderson cooper: it was a tightly knit community of some 400 men, women, and children. hadas kalderon: it's like a big family. noam peri: the community of the kibbutz is very close. sharone lifshitz: it's a special place nir oz. anderson cooper: sharone lifshitz grew up in nir oz, just a mile and a half from gaza. sharone lifshitz: kibbutz was a socialist utopia, if you wish. i always try to explain to people that we were brought up in a utopia. and in many ways it was wonderful. anderson cooper: her parents, yocheved and oded lifshitz were peace activists who helped found the kibbutz in the 1950s. sharone lifshitz: it was built by a lot of people that came from cities that already grew up in israel. they were not holocaust survivors, so it had a kind of a lighter atmosphere, i think, than many other places. noam peri: what brought them together is they believe in human rights, they believe in peace, and they believe that everybody on all nations, on allll religionsns deserve to live e in peace.. anderson cooper: noam peri's parents were among the founders as well. noam peri: members of the kibbutz, each have their own job and way of life, but they gather a lot for joint meals and holidaysys and other occasions. and they have this community both for taking together dedecisions anand celelebrating hoholidays. anderson cooper: on october 7, the kibbutz had just finished celebrating the last day of a religious holiday. at dawn, as the security cameras show, there was no sign of danger. itai anghel: 6:00 o'clock in the morning everything looks rather normal. most of the people are sleeping, couple wake up early in order to go o on a walk.k. anderson cooper: at 6:06 am, gad haggai and his wife judi weinstein headed out the front gate for their morning walk. around 6:30, they recorded this video showing in the distance rockets firing from gaza. a red alert was called immediately. the couple sent this video to a group chat at 6:42 am. they haven't been heard from since. hadas kalderon: i could hear the red colors, it means that we have to go to the safe room, to the shelter. i'm all alone in my own house. my children with the father in the other house. anderson cooper: hadas kalderon's youngest kids, sahar and erez, were with their father offer in his house nearby. hadas' 19-year-old son rotem was in his own house. and hadas' mother, carmela dan, was in her home with her 13-year-old granddaughter noya who's autistic. gaia kalderon: our grandma was her best friend that's why she was with her. anderson cooper: that's hadas' oldest daughter gaia who lives in tel aviv. gaia kalderon: time when everything is happening, i talk to my mom, my dad, my sister, my grandma. anderson cooper: by 6:49 am, hamas gunmen were at their front gate. a security camera shows bullets hitting an empty guardhouse. itai anghel: by the yellow main gate you have a butz in which someone usually guards the entrance. no one i is there. and you see shots over there, and then you see the holes in the glass. and everything is shattered. anderson cooper: seconds later, gunmen enter the kibbutz. others from gaza, besides hamas gunmen, also appeared, men and some young people wanting to be part of the attack or just witness it up close. hadas kalderon was in her safe room exchanging messages with her family and neighbors. hadas kalderon: even one girl she told me i have a picture that my mom is on the floor with blood and the terrorist is with a gun just behind her. anderson cooper: that's yocheved lifshitz. hadas kalderon: yes, you know that. her daughter she called me, she asked me, do you know about that? is it a fake picture? is it true? anderson cooper: it was true. 74-year-old yocheved lifshitz, adored by generations of kids she helped raise on the kibbutz, was among the first to be murdered. this is yocheved lifshitz's home. it's completely torched. we know that gunmen broke in and killed her here. they murdered her. they gained access to her facebook account and they posted a live image of her lying on the ground in a pool of blood surrounded by armed men. they wanted her friends and family to see. groups of gunmen went house to house, block by block, capturing some, killing others. itai anghel: one of the terrorists is hiding, then apparently he heard somethining, an engigine of a , an israeaeli car approachining the gatete. so he stands up, immediately approaching the gate, and fires and fires. speaker 1: [non-english speech] hadas kalderon: our kibbutz had a pogrom. they kill and they went house by house, house by house. anderson cooper: many residents had made it to their safe rooms, but the fortified shelters were built to protect from rockets not terrorists on the ground. you can tell gunmen tried to pry this door open. this handle is nearly been pulled off from tugging it. it looks like they tried to pry open the door as well. you can fit your hand through here. they could just maybe look in, but they couldn't actually break through this door. the family in this house survived and their safe room, though at least one of them was wounded. there's blood all over the bed and sheets. like many, hadas kalderon safe room didn't lock from the inside. for hours she held the door handle to stop gunmen from getting in. hadas kalderon: i'm in the safe room but i'm holding my door. i'm all alone and i have to survive. i hold it with my leg, after a while i have pain i take a metal that my son used to make some sport. i took the metal-- anderson cooper: a pull up bar. hadas kalderon: yeah. i put it in the door. i didn't think i'm going to survive that. i send a message to my family. anderson cooper: hadas' 12-year-old son texted her at 8:15 am. "mom, be silent," he wrote. "i really love you." minutes later, hadas wrote in her family group chat, "you are my life. hope that will go through this and survive. love you so much." her 16-year-old daughter sahar wrote back, "mom, take care of yourself. love you." offer, the father of her kids, texted hadas to say he'd escaped the safe room through the window with their kids and they were hiding in the bushes. she responded, "are you crazy? go back to the shelter quickly." hadas kalderon: then my battery is gone. i don't have a phone, light is gone, i'm in the dark. no water, no food, no nothing. just me and god and the terrorists. eight hours, from 6:30 in the morning till 3:00 o'clock afternoon. anderson cooper: her daughter gaia in tel aviv, cut off from her family, started to scroll through social media where hamas was now posting horrific images. gaia kalderon: it was so hard but i knew i had to do it. so i was trying to find something, and then i saw erez. speaker 2: [non-english speech] gaia kalderon: that was so hard to watch. but then i told myself, ok, he's ok. he's alive. anderson cooper: gaia and her family want people to know what happened to erez. this video shows him being dragged away by gunmen, one of whom appears to have blood on his hand. we geolocated where the video was shot. this is the last known location of erez kalderon. he was kidnapped by hamas gunmen. and he was videotaped as they were dragging him away in this direction. this is the fence to the kibbutz, and gaza is only about a mile and a half away. hadas kalderon: oh, it is sad. i miss him so much. that's what i can tell you. [non-english speech] erez is small. he's 12 years old. he never been so far-- for so many days so far from me even in normal condition. erez is very, very funny guy. he make everybody laugh around him. we always sit together and we laugh. he's small but he have a huge humor. and he loved to ride horses. he loved to ride bike, mountain bike. he loved to play football, ping pong. anderson cooper: erez's dad, offer, has not appeared in any videos, nor has his sister sahar. hadas and gaia believe they being held hos gaia kalderon: i can show you something we did. that's her. anderson cooper: that's hers. gaia kalderon: it's just the beginning. hadas kalderon: you know, i can hear them all the time in my ear even. mom, mom, save me, save me. come to pick me. i miss you. i miss you. (children singing) anderson cooper: the bodies of hadas' mother carmela dan and carmela's granddaughter noya were identified about a week ago. they were among the more than two dozen residents of nir oz known to have been murdered during the attack. hadas kalderon: you want to tell him about your grandma? gaia kalderon: the best grandma in the world. i used to sit with her for hours and just talk to her about my problems. anderson cooper: she was good to talk to. gaia kalderon: yes. she always wanted to know about everything that's going on. anderson cooper: carmela dan was 80 years old. her granddaughter noya was 13. ahead, more on the hostageses taken from nir oz. anat shoshany: i recognized her immediately. reporter 1: the whole story with anderson cooper is appointment viewing on sunday nights. one whole story, one whole hour. anderson cooper: what are your biggest fears? subject 1: the breaking of my brain is the concern. interviewer 1: do you think you could have picked up a gun? you're a dancer. reporter 1: the world's best journalists dig deeper-- reporter 2: i'm about to do something that i haven't done before. reporter 1: --into the stories they can't ignore. reporter 3: do you ever ask why police took so long? reporter 1: go in depth every sunday night. the whole story with anderson cooper, sundays at 8:00 on cnn. itai anghel: i was the first journalist to step inside nir oz, and i came and started documenting two days after the atrocities took place. anderson cooper: itai anghel is a war correspondent and documentary filmmaker for israel's channel 12. itai anghel: the first impression is the smell because you smell death. imagine ththat you see nylon bagsgs with body p parts. imagine that you see tiny little b bags of bababies. and then there is s the sound, which is absolutely silent. nothing but birds. birds and the chimes. anderson cooper: more than a week later when we were able to get to nir oz and take these images, there was still that strange sickening silence,e, those bird, some flies, a breeze blowing through broken windows. the residents were gone. only their cats remained. no family, no home was untouched by terror. the gunman who came to this kibbutz had hours to roam the grounds freely. they killed men, women, and children in their homes, out on the street, in their cars. and they spent a lot of time rifling through people's possessions, seeing what they could take, looting whatever they wanted. people's possessions were still strewn about. it appears someone tried to hotwire this car. nearly every home had been defiled. this is what was left of adina and david moshe's home. torched by gunmen, you can still see plates in the dishwasher. anat shoshany: my grandmother, she always told me that this is the best place to live. anderson cooper: adina's granddaughter, anat, says the couple had lived in nir oz for more than 50 years. anat shoshany: i grew up in this house. i spent there every joyful family moment, and it's all burned down. anderson cooper: anat recorded this video when she went back to her grandparents' house. she knew what to expect but still it was overwhelming. anat shoshany: [crying] but i still have my grandmother's bracelet. she gave it to me, yeah. she gave it to me like one month ago before everything happened. anderson cooper: her grandparents hid in their safe room when the gunman came. adina messaged everyone they were ok. "we are perfectly all right," adina wrote. "there are still noises of light guns shooting outside. other than that, locked in the shelter till further instructions." anat shoshany: my grandmother was a very, very strong. she didn't want us to be panicked. later on-- anderson cooper: worried about you in that moment. anat shoshany: yeah, she's this kind of woman. she always take care of us. later on we found her phone inside the shelter. anderson cooper: anat says david moshe was shot through the door of their safe room, three bullet holes are visible. his dried blood is all over the floor. this is where he died, crouching, holding on to the door handle. at 9:44 am, adina sent her last message. she wrote that her husband was gravely wounded and gunmen were still trying to enter the shelter. the door handle david held on to is still on the floor. gunmen took adina through the e safe room window. by midday, this video appeared online. anat shoshany: we recognized her immediately. anderson cooper: that's adina between two gunmen on a motorbike in gaza. gaia kalderon: did you see adina? she with the red shirt, and they took her. when i was young, she used to call me and give me candies always. she was like come, come, come, come, i will give you some candies. and she was so sweet. noam peri: adina was one of the people who when we were in the elementary school, she was the one that was taking care of us. and still as a grown up when i would come to visit the kibbutz, she always give me a hug and ask how am i and shshe's happy y to see my kids grow. anderson cooper: david moshe was buried in nir oz a week and a half after the attack. mourners: [non-english speech] anderson cooper: he'd been married to adina for 53 years. anat shoshany: we promised him to fight for my grandmother, but i will not live on angry way. anderson cooper: you don't want to live with hate in your heart. anat shoshany: no. this is not our way. david moshe: (singing) anderson cooper: at his funeral, anat played this video from a celebration in nir oz earlier this year. that's david singing. then one by one, other members of the kibbutz join in. (singing) anat shoshany: this is what the song means. the time will fix all that breaks. you're allowed to be afraid and you're allowed to be sad. but tomorrow we can rebuild and recover. (singing) anderson cooper: when we return, two more hostages of more than 200 still being held are on their way home. hostages are set free. sharone lifshitz: my mom is back. anderson cooper: and survivors demand answers. subject 2: [non-english speech] itai anghel: they were betrayed by the state. anderson cooper: it is 3:00 am here in israel, the early hours of freedom for an american mother and daughter held hostage for nearly two weeks by hamas. judith and natalie raanan were the first hostages to be released from captivity. the two americans were visiting judith's mother, natalie's grandmother, at a kibbutz called nahel oz about 18 miles north of nir oz when they were kidnapped. how are judith and natalie doing? ayelet sella: judith and natalie they are doing ok. they're taking their time to heal and to process what they've been through, what the entire family and the entire nation has been through. anderson cooper: while judith and natalie made it out, their cousin ayelet believes nine more of their family members are still being held hostage. ayelet sella: we have a three-year-old and an eight-year-old brother and sister yahel and naveh, and we have noam who is 12. so three children in our family. we haven't been given a sign of life or any indication as to how they're doing. this is truly heartbreaking. it's very hard to sleep at night. reporter 4: [non-english speech] anderson cooper: a few days later, two elderly women were also released, 79-year-old nurit cooper and 85-year-old yocheved lifshitz. both were from nir oz. yocheved's daughter, sharone, was by her mother's side at the hospital in tel aviv where she described her harrowing journey to reporters. yocheved lifshitz: [non-english speech] interpreter: i went through hell. they went on a rampage in our kibbutz. i was kikidnapped. as i was lying on the side on the motorbike, legs here, body there, the shabaab hit me with sticks. they didn't break my ribs but it was very painful and mamade it hard for me to o breathe. anderson cooper: yocheved have it said she was taken into an underground tunnel. sharone lifshitz: there they walked for a few kilometers on the wet ground. there are a huge network of tunnels underneath. it looks like a spider web. when she first arrived, they told them that they are muslims. and they're not going to hurt them. anderson cooper: how is your mother doing? sharone lifshitz: my mom is looking ok, a bit thinner. it seemed that she did get a basic medical care. the nurses said she's very sharp and very communicative. and she wants to tell everybody what she knows. i think your body, your mind, everything goes into quite a different state, isn't it? so it seems to me that she somehow had that spirit that carried her through. anderson cooper: sharone's mother was criticized in israel because when she was released, she shook the hand of a hamas gunmen. what did you think of that when you saw that? sharone lifshitz: it's very typical my mom. she loves the human. so-- anderson cooper: even though these were people holding her hostage, she's the kind of person who sees them as a human being. sharone lifshitz: yes, she acknowledged them as a human being. horrific as everything is, she kind of couldn't stop herself. anderson cooper: sharone's father, 83-year-old oded lifshitz, is still missing. they believe he's being held hostage. sharone lifshitz: my father and mother got separated early on. my father, it seems, was injured and we don't know more about him. so we're still in the dark. you know, my mom is back and that's a ray of light, an amazing, beautiful bright ray of light. but there's a lot of darkness. you've been to the kibbutz, you've seen what we are facing. people are going for funerals every day. i'm sitting here talking to you, not just to rejoice about my mom's return-- wonderful as it is-- but to remind everyone that we are still in the situation. that there's over 200 people missing, and that we want them back. anderson cooper: sharone grew up in nir oz and knows many of the families who've lost loved ones. were you shocked by the scale, the brutality? sharone lifshitz: horrified. it was beyond anything we ever imagined. and the army did not come for seven, eight hours. this is exactly what israel was built for, isn't it? to protect the jewish people. it totally failed in that this time. anderson cooper: israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu has yet to publicly accept any responsibility for his government's failures on october 7, but several high ranking members of thehe military anad intelllligence serviceces hav. yocheved lifshshitz: [non-engnglish speech]h] interprereter: the lacack of awarareness by idf and shin bet did great damage to us. itai anghel: these people in your eyes are what we call the salt of the earth. and they were betrayed by the state. the people of the kibbutz smuggled me inside. the army prevented people from coming, filmingng