Ofakim

On October 7, less than an hour after Hamas infiltrated Israel, two trucks with 22 terrorists rolled into the city, loaded with guns, hundreds of hand grenades, dozens of RPG rockets, explosive charges, and mines, with the intention of taking over the city. The battle that ensued resulted in the murder of 46 civilians, 8 policemen and 5 soldiers, and several civilians kidnapped by the terrorists and taken into the Gaza Strip. Some Ofakim residents were among the senior citizens that were butchered at a bus stop in Sderot, as they waited to board a bus to the Dead Sea. Incredibly, it was the spontaneous action on the part of residents and police officers, some in flipflops armed only with knives, a few handguns, and eventually the terrorists’ own rifles, that rebuffed most of the terrorists by 10am. Mayor Itzik Danino called the first responders “heroes” and said, “It’s an event that we couldn’t have prepared for. We are a city without security forces, we don’t have the army.”
Rachel and David Edri have become famous in Israel for holding off five terrorist who held them captive in their own home for over 20 hours, by distracting them with food and conversation.  The police force that arrived at the scene to rescue the Adri couple also included their son, who knew the structure of the house very well, and aided in the rescue operation. Rachel Edri was born and raised in Ofakim, the daughter Iranian immigrants. Working at the canteen at the Tze’elim army base for 42 years, she was a mother-like figure to the soldiers, laughing with them, talking to them, helping them. Last June, Rachel Edri even received a certificate of merit for her many years of dedication, in a ceremony held at the President’s residence in Jerusalem.
In television interviews she shared how, during the 20 hours she and her husband were held hostage in their home, she managed to deceive the terrorists, speak to their hearts and even offered them tea, coffee and cookies. Rachel remembers the exact time when she and her husband left the protective shelter and went back into their house. “It was six minutes past nine in the morning,” she says. “I saw five people with weapons entering my house through the window. I thought of running toward the front door, but I knew they could shoot me in the back. We decided to do what they said. They took our phones, broke them, and then took us up the stairs to the second floor, threatening us with guns. They opened cupboards, threw all the things out of them, and then saw my son’s police uniforms and hats. They started shouting: ‘ Where are your children?’ I lied and told them ‘in America’. One of the terrorists said to me: ‘You remind me of my mother’. I told him, ‘I am really like your mother. I will help you, I will take care of you. What do you need?”
Four hours after she and her husband were taken hostage, Rachel decided to offer them refreshments. “I asked them if they wanted tea, coffee and cookies. They told me ‘bring them.’ Part of it was due to my desire to bribe them, but part of it was due to my nature. I went downstairs again with one of them. He held me close to the side of the stairs so that I wouldn’t get close to the policemen, so I told the policemen at the entrance (which is close to the kitchen), to prepare them tea and I explained to them where everything was.”
At other times, Rachel offered, “Come on, you will teach me Arabic, and I will teach you Hebrew. One of them started singing songs by Lior Narkis, and I sang songs by Umm Kulthum. I said to them: ‘Tell me, besides being martyrs, what else do you do? It’s a pity that we are constantly fighting. Let’s live in peace, where you aren’t constantly being killed and ours aren’t constantly being killed. Your soldiers won’t be harmed if they don’t start.” After 20 hours in captivity, their ordeal ended when a police SWAT team breached the Edri home and killed the five terrorists holding the couple.
Speaking from the Edri’s bullet-riddled living room, still musty with the stale smell of blood and the acrid aftermath of the firefight, Mayor Danino said he fully supports Israel’s ongoing war to uproot the Hamas terror group from its military and political control of the Gaza Strip. “There’s only one solution for this. You have to destroy Hamas. Hamas is ISIS,” said the mayor.