Awaiting rescue, Israeli woman stalled Hamas terrorists for 20 hours by giving them cookies and Coke Zero
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.
An Israeli woman held hostage with her husband in their home for 20 hours recounted the ordeal to the media on Monday, saying she bought time by serving her Hamas captors drinks and joking around with them.
The attack began after a rocket siren that made them head toward their bomb shelter in their Ofakim home, Rahel Edri told the Walla news site.
Five men broke their windows, claiming to be the police but largely speaking Arabic. The men forced her upstairs, broke her and her husband’s phones, asked them questions, and rummaged through the closets.
“They pointed a gun at me and held a grenade over my head,” Edri told Walla. “I told him I had to inject insulin, trying to distract them from the fact I have children who are police officers… I offered them drinks: Coke Zero, water.”
The attackers told Edri that they were heroes and that their children supported their actions. They would check the windows to ensure no one was coming to rescue the hostages.
Edri said she joked with the attackers in a bid to buy time for rescue forces to arrive. “I said, ‘I’ll teach you Hebrew, and you’ll teach me Arabic,'” she said. “I understood that it was a matter of life and death.”
“Suddenly, around midnight, we heard the special forces entering,” she said, and she became anxious that they would accidentally shoot at her. “Instead of killing us, the terrorists ran to various locations and hid until they were shot at. I want to thank the police. They are our heroes.”
אופקים: שוטרים מול מחבלים pic.twitter.com/Ey10lgSBom
— הדיגיטאלית (@LTurkishdizi) October 7, 2023
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Today is the last day of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need you to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Today is the last day to contribute.