TEL AVIV - On Wednesday afternoon, Ms Rachel Edri hugged US President Joe Biden.

The 65-year-old grandmother has become a symbol of survival after she and her husband of 41 years, David, were held for 20 hours at gunpoint in their home in Ofakim, a town 40km from the Gaza Strip border.

Their survival of the Oct 7 Hamas attacks was credited to her sense of calm – and quite possibly, her decision to offer food to her captors.

“For me, anyone that comes to my house, the first thing is hospitality,” Ms Rachel Edri said in interviews with Israeli local media.

Five men entered her home through a window in the early hours of Oct 7 with weapons and grenades. They questioned the Edris and then demanded that they move to the upstairs bedroom.

The couple did as they were told. But Ms Edri continued to find ways to roam about her home, telling her captors that she needed her insulin and to use the bathroom. She wanted the police, whenever they might arrive, to see that she was still alive.

She also spoke with her captors, Ms Edri said, asking about their families as she offered cookies, tea, coffee and even Coca-Cola Zero. They scoffed – they wanted regular Coca-Cola.

“I told them ‘I’m diabetic, I only drink Zero,’” Ms Edri said, laughing, in interviews. Hours later, she made them lunch. “They ate like horses.”

In doing so, she exerted a kind of control over the situation, allowing the couple to build a relationship, however fraught, with those holding them captive in their own home.

While she was still being held, Ms Rachel Edri was able to surreptitiously indicate to the officers outside her home – which included her son, Mr Evi Edri, a police officer – that there were five captors.

Time crawled on.

“It was 4pm, and I said to myself ‘oy va voy, they need to eat lunch,” she said. Anyone who is hungry is not in a good mood, she figured, and it was important to keep her captors content.

The Edris were rescued early on Oct 8. All of their captors were killed.

Amid so much tragedy and grief, many Israelis have held on to Ms Edri’s unlikely story of survival. Graffiti has appeared in Tel Aviv with her face superimposed onto an image of “Rosie the Riveter”.

In a moment of terror, a typical Israeli grandmother did something that typical grandmothers do – demand that guests in their home eat. It was a recognisable instinct for a nation looking for something, anything, to hold on to.

On Wednesday, Ms Rachel Edri was one of the survivors and relatives of the victims of the Hamas attack on Oct 7 who were invited to meet Mr Biden in Tel Aviv.

She leaned in for a hug and held on. NYTIMES