Batsheva Yahalomi and her family awoke in their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz at around 6.30am on 7 October hearing "gunshots outside the house" and "many rockets" overhead. Her husband Ohad and 12-year-old son Eitan were taken hostage by Hamas and haven't been seen since.
Batsheva told Sky News’ Kay Burley that she and her family woke at around 6.30am on 7 October to the sound of "gunshots outside the house" and "rockets". She ran to the safe room with her husband Ohad and their three children - a 12-year-old son, a 10-year-old daughter and an 18-month-old baby girl.
"We went into the safe room, and we waited there. Then we heard gunshots outside the house. We heard people shouting 'Allah Akbar' in Arabic. We smelt fire and smoke - it was very, very scary. After two hours in the safe room, my husband went to see what was happening. At about 10am, the terrorists entered the house - they shot the door and they shot my husband.”
"They opened the door to the safe room where I was with my three children. They started shouting at us, pointing their guns at us and talking in Arabic, but they said 'come, come' in English. We went out of the safe room and saw my husband sitting on the floor, injured, bleeding, but he was talking to us. He told us he loves us and that we should go with them."
Batsheva tried to put her baby girl in her husband's arms in the hope they wouldn't take her - but they did, she said. Through tears, she described how Hamas men placed her and her children on motorcycles. Her baby started to cry and she was given the baby by one of the men - leaving her, her daughter and the baby on one bike - and her 12-year-old son Eitan alone with a man on the other.
Crying, she continued: "We started driving through Gaza. We saw lots of terrorists. We saw the kibbutz burning - everything was burning.” Then two IDF tanks appeared near the Gaza border and shocked the men on the bikes - causing hers to crash and giving her the chance to escape.
She said: "This was the last time I saw my son. His motorcycle continued driving. We ran away. We managed to escape through the fields. It was very scary because we saw terrorists around us all the time and many rockets above.”
She managed to reach the northern part of the kibbutz, where she was helped by IDF soldiers who let her call her husband's sister and she told to go to their house to find him. "I thought he was there, but many hours later someone entered the house and he was not there - they took him also. We don't know if he's alive or not - he's injured. My husband and my son - I don't know what's going on with them."
Hadas Kalderon also spoke to Sky News about her family - five of whom were kidnapped on 7 October.
"Five members of my family have been kidnapped - two of them have been murdered already," she said. “The whole reason I came all the way here is that I want to save my children who are still alive. I'm talking to your heart and all of the UK's hearts, all the people. You probably have families. I want you to imagine for one minute your small young child has been taken, in a cruel way, from their safe house - their bed - with just pajamas - no shoes - taken suddenly and then disappeared for an unknown time. You don't know when you'll see them again."
Hadas continued to describe how her 12-year-old son suffers from panic attacks and is unable to sleep without his mother and his toys. "He can't sleep alone, he needs me," she said. "It has been one month now. Every day we wake up, we live through this hell - this nightmare."
Israeli officials are demanding the unconditional release of all the hostages being held by Hamas.