Rachel Edri, whose quick thinking saved her and her husband on Oct. 7, returns home to Ofakim
Rachel Edri, widely known as "Rachel from Ofakim," returned home on Thursday to a house that had been destroyed during the October 7 massacre. On October 7, Rachel and her husband were held hostage in their home, and her quick thinking delayed the terrorists, ultimately aiding their rescue by Yamam special forces.
In a post on his Facebook account, Ofakim Mayor Itzik Danino shared the following: "Nearly two years later, our hero, Rachel Edri, is finally returning to her rebuilt home.
"The walls of this house witnessed one of the most difficult and painful moments of October 7, yet they also hold the story of Rachel and her family's bravery, determination, and strength," he added.
"Yesterday, I participated in the housewarming ceremony, a special and emotional moment when the home was brought back to life, filled with light, love, and hope. Rachel, you are a symbol of female strength, resilience, and extraordinary human fortitude."
"The entire city salutes you and wishes you many years of peace, security, and happiness within the walls of your home. May the memory of your beloved husband, David Edri, be a blessing."
Edri's heroism and quick thinking on October 7
In April, Rachel was chosen to light a torch at the Independence Day ceremony at Mount Herzl, but the ceremony was postponed due to adverse weather conditions.
The 66-year-old Edri has become a worldwide symbol of remarkable resourcefulness in the face of terror. For nearly 24 hours, Rachel was able to speak with the terrorists, gaining their trust and contributing significantly to the success of the rescue operation that saved both her life and that of her late husband, David, who passed away a few months later.
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Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Speaker 1: From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. This is Potomac Watch. Paul Gigot: It's a new Middle East, or at least it was supposed to be after Israel's successful war against Iran and the US and Israeli bombing of Iran's nuclear sites. But six weeks later, old tensions are rising again and Israel is facing new international pressure over its continuing war in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there. What's next for Israel and the US in the Middle East? That is our subject for today on Potomac Watch. I'm Paul Gigot with the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, and I'm here with a member of the editorial board, Elliot Kaufman. Let's start with Gaza. Steve Witkoff, the US envoy, President Trump's envoy, left the region recently frustrated that there was no deal saying Hamas just doesn't seem to want a ceasefire deal with Israel that would release the hostages and at least have some stop to the fighting. What explains this continuing Hamas resistance, which, if anything, has gotten more strident in recent weeks? Elliot Kaufman: Well, first, I think you are right to frame this in the backdrop of the war with Iran because when I talk to senior Israeli political officials, they are immensely frustrated right now. They say, "We just took out Iran's nuclear program. We have talked about this for 20 years as our country's number one priority, and all we hear is what have you done for us lately?" Because they are sort of stuck in the mire in Gaza and Hamas does not want a deal. And so when it is said, Israel should just get out, cut a deal, free the hostages, disarm Hamas, they would love to do just that, but that deal is not available for them. Paul Gigot: Because Hamas will not cooperate. Elliot Kaufman: Hamas will not cooperate. And they had made progress. Witkoff went to the region hoping previously to close it out himself, but the circumstances changed as Israel has long known, a humanitarian crisis in Gaza equals a Hamas victory, not an Israeli victory. And so the idea has always been you can't allow starvation to take hold. That's how Hamas wins. Hamas has encouraged the crisis in various ways, but once that becomes the dominant international narrative, both in the media and from western states even, it becomes all pressure on Israel, no pressure on Hamas. And Hamas backed off. It not only went back on terms that it had provisionally agreed to, but it said, "We don't want to talk. Flood the territory with aid. Give us all we could possibly want to sustain our own fighters, and then maybe we'll talk once again." And so that's where things are at and that's why Witkoff is out of the region. There isn't much to talk about there. Paul Gigot: To your point, Witkoff was sounding very optimistic a couple of weeks ago, so was Donald Trump saying we're very close to a deal. Some of the Arab intermediaries, interlocutors had been saying, "We think there'll be a deal." Why do you think Hamas feels now that it doesn't need to cooperate? I mean, obviously the humanitarian food problem is playing as you suggest in its favor as a global diplomatic public relations catastrophe for Israel. It's really hurting them, I think. And most of the press doesn't really dig into the root causes of that. The United Nations recently reported, I think, that 86% of their trucks that bring in food aid to the Strip, they've been ransacked or raided. That's the UN, that's not Israel's data. That's the United Nations data. A lot of that is Hamas, no question about it. And Hamas, they continue to benefit from the suffering of the Gazan people, which gets blamed on Israel. But what's turned Hamas here, obviously if they give up the hostages, they feel that they've lost this advantage that they have negotiating leverage. But meanwhile, Israel can continue to prosecute the war and continue to degrade Hamas fighters. Elliot Kaufman: It's a very good question, and I think the way to answer it is to look at when Hamas has actually made a deal, what have the factors been? And so the first deal was in November 2023, so not long after the October 7th attack massacre that started this war. And the way Israel views that first deal is that Hamas faced a combination of military and political pressure that was much stronger than what it had expected, meaning Israel was rolling on the ground in those days and came in heavy attacking Northern Gaza, Gaza City, the capital in a way that was so aggressive that it even scared the Biden administration, which afterward told them, "Don't fight that way again, please tone it down." But at the same time, those disagreements with the Biden administration were kept private in those early days. It hadn't yet been the sort of daily public confrontation between the US and Israel. And so Hamas saw this unprecedented military pressure and also political backing for Israel's war effort and said, "We have to stop this, reset things." And it released a lot of hostages in that first deal and on worse terms than it got later on and on worse terms than Israel is willing to give now. So that's how they got a first deal following that, military pressure weakened Israel's political backing weakened and there was a long period without a deal. And that probably would have continued because Hamas figured Israel's paying a worse price than we are from this, and that Israel will buckle first until President Trump got elected. And that changed the whole political horizon going forward to the point where Trump was saying, "Release the hostages, or else the gates of hell will open, or else we will unleash hell, or else I'll give full backing to Israel." Hamas looking at that prospect of a totally different political situation, made a second deal at the very end of the Biden administration leading right into President Trump's inauguration. Since then, has Israel been able to put on new military pressure, substantially change the political situation? Well, it had this offensive that it hyped, but it's moved very slowly and Israel has still been unwilling to fight in the 25, 30% of Gaza that it has never fought in for 22 months. Paul Gigot: Elliot, that's a real surprise to me, that figure of that amount of territory that it hasn't fought in. It cleared out Gaza City then it went and cleared out Rafah. It's cleared out that Philadelphi Corridor. It cut to Gaza in half, well over a year ago to control the north. Obviously then people flowed back after Israeli troops withdrew from the north substantially. But where are these territories that they haven't gone into and why haven't they? Elliot Kaufman: Right. So Gaza City in the north, Rafah in the south, Khan Younis still south. It's the central camps in the middle of Gaza. Paul Gigot: Those would be too high risk to go into for Israeli soldiers because Israel obviously got to be wary about casualties. Elliot Kaufman: That's right. But the main idea is that Israeli hostages are being held there. Paul Gigot: I see. Elliot Kaufman: And Israeli intelligence has long assessed this, and the Israeli military accordingly has judged again for 22 months that it would be too dangerous to the hostages for Israel to operate on the ground in those areas. And that's a major sacrifice because if you think about insurgencies, which this has certainly become, one of the main issues always is if the enemy has a safe haven, if the Taliban can cross over into Pakistan, if the North Vietnamese can cross over into Cambodia, you have a real problem. And Israel has been allowing in effect a safe haven within Gaza. And then last point on this is that Israel can say, "Well, we control even 75% of Gaza." But very few of the people of Gaza live in those areas because everywhere Israel goes, it says the, "People, you have to move." And where do the people move? Exactly to that Hamas run area- Paul Gigot: Because they want to reduce civilian casualties. Elliot Kaufman: Reduce casualties, but at the same time, it's kept the entire population under Hamas control. Paul Gigot: All right, we're going to take a break and when we come back, we'll talk about the rumblings that perhaps Israel will go back into Gaza and reoccupy it when we come back. Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigot here on Potomac Watch the daily podcast of Wall Street Journal Opinion. And I'm here with editorial writer Elliot Kaufman talking about events in the Middle East. Let's talk about the food crisis for a second, but first, let's listen Donald Trump talk about delivering US aid for food deliveries in Gaza, and then also the discussion, some of the leaks that Israel intends to reoccupy all of Gaza. Let's listen. Speaker 4: Would you support Israel reoccupying all of Gaza as been suggested by some Israeli officials? Donald Trump: Well, I don't know what the suggestion is. I know that we are there now trying to get people fed. As you know, $60 million was given by the United States fairly recently to supply food and a lot of food, frankly, for the people of Gaza that are obviously not doing too well with the food. And I know Israel's going to help us with that in terms of distribution and also money. We also have the Arab states are going to help us with that in terms of the money and possibly distribution. So that's what I'm focused on. As far as the rest of it, I really can't say. That's going to be pretty much up to Israel. Paul Gigot: Let's take these one at a time, Elliot. First the food problem, is that easing in Gaza? Elliot Kaufman: It is easing. More aid has been coming into Gaza in recent days. More aid is being distributed in Gaza and food prices are falling. So that is a good sign and it was made clear to the Israelis by the US, by the Trump administration that whose ever fault this is, you have to fix it. And because you can make all kinds of arguments, it's the UN's fault, Hamas's fault. They're all true to some extent. And yet Israel pays the cost. Like we said, if there is a real humanitarian crisis and starvation, and I would say serious hunger had become a major risk and was developing in parts of Gaza, especially in the north of Gaza. Paul Gigot: But there is an attempt by several nations to deliver food to Gaza to get it there, to ease starvation issues that have been developing. What about this issue of reoccupying Gaza? Israel got out of Gaza. I mean, when I visited there, I think I was in Gaza in the early nineties in the wake of the Clinton-Oslo Accords. Israel was still there and there were still settlements in Gaza. Of course it left in mid-2000s or so, and Hamas won the election that was held over the Palestinian authority or Fatah and has ruled it ever since. That's not something that Israel seems to want to do because occupying it would make them vulnerable to terrorism attacks, car bombs, what have you. And instead Israel had been talking about, "We're going to occupy or police part of this Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza that had been the corridor because of smuggling and so on." Hamas had been able to smuggle in arms, rockets, and materials to build the tunnel network, and they were also going to build a kind of a buffer zone elsewhere between Israel proper and Gaza. Do they have to go in and occupy it? I can't imagine that they want to do this. Elliot Kaufman: So everything you say about the costs and unpleasantness of occupying Gaza is true. The problem is that the costs and unpleasantness of not occupying Gaza was also demonstrated in the years since Israel left. So Egypt occupied Gaza from the end of the 1948 war until 1967, Israel conquered Gaza in 1967, occupied it. Paul Gigot: And said to Egypt, "Take it please." And Egypt said, "No." Correct? Elliot Kaufman: "No, thank you," they said, because it's a problem. And sort of always has been. Now Israel had a full military occupation until 1994 when it withdrew troops from Gaza City. And then like you said, 2005, Israel withdrew everyone, all of the Israeli civilian settlers, troops, and they said, "We will sit behind our border. We don't want to run your affairs. Please leave us alone." And of course, they got the opposite, exactly the opposite. And so the question now, now that the other ways of pressuring Hamas into releasing hostages have failed, and they're not going to do it with aid. I think it's clear they can try to get the aid only to the civilians and not to Hamas, but if they work too hard at that, some civilians do suffer. And then Israel buckles first, not Hamas. Israel buckles first on that question every time. And so that's not going to work. The question becomes what can they do to finally pressure Hamas? And internally, Israeli political leaders have been discussing several options. One of them was, "We can tell Hamas every week that you don't release hostages." Israel will annex land along the border or the buffer zones of Gaza and say, "You have lost this land." And maybe losing land, maybe that will get through to them, or not, or maybe it won't. Another option was this full occupation option, meaning fight in that remaining 25, 30% of Gaza and put real military pressure on Hamas. Maybe that will do it. Paul Gigot: Well, on the other hand, the risk there is obvious, a lot more Israeli casualties and Hamas may end up killing the hostages. Elliot Kaufman: It's a real risk. It's a real risk and it's huge. And it's also not clear if Israel would stay there so it could fight in those areas and then leave. And so that would avoid a lot of the problems of not having to run the lives of 2 million Palestinians. But if you're going to leave, are you really pressuring Hamas? Can't it just wait you out? Then again, if you stay, you have all the problems of being responsible for Gaza. This has been a long-term problem in the war that the IDF, for better or for worse- Paul Gigot: Israeli defense forces. Elliot Kaufman: That's right, has really resisted being responsible for Gaza. Paul Gigot: Well, and you can imagine why. Elliot Kaufman: They're soldiers. They don't want to be dealing with handing out food and the sewer systems and everything else. Paul Gigot: And thinking that every civilian that approaches them is a potential death threat. Elliot Kaufman: And so they've kept it safe and they have cleared civilians out of their zones. But like I said, at the same time, that has allowed Hamas to stay in power because it controls the civilian lives. And so Israel's now facing a real choice, and will Prime Minister Netanyahu force this on the army, force it to take responsibility for Gaza? He's been talking about it and leaking about it, but he hasn't actually decided it yet. And were this threat to work on Hamas and Hamas would say, "Please don't occupy us. We'll make a deal." I would say that Netanyahu would take that in a second. However, I don't think Hamas is going to bail him out in that way. And so he's going to have to make a very difficult choice. Paul Gigot: We are going to take another break, and when we come back, we'll talk about how much support is eroding for Israel in the United States when we come back. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, "Play the Opinion Potomac Watch podcast." That is, "Play the Opinion Potomac Watch podcast." Speaker 1: From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. This is Potomac Watch. Paul Gigot: Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigot here on Potomac Watch, and I am here talking about Israel, Gaza, and the United States interests with Elliot Kaufman in the wake of the Iranian conflict. And that successful attack by Israel and disarming Hezbollah and muting with US help the Houthis to some extent. And of course, Hamas has been set back. A former American defense official, very sympathetic to Israel, said, "Look, Hamas is no longer a threat." Military threat, you can be contained. The best Israeli approach would be back off and just say, "Let the Palestinians run Gaza, and with Qatar and some others providing money for rebuilding, just quarantine them and then move on to try to get back to a more normal life for Israelis and then reach out and try to extend the Abraham Accords with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and so on." Is that just not possible? Speaker 1: It is possible to some extent. It also comes with risks. I think it's right that Israel has accomplished a great deal here in the region and is actually in a strategic position as it's been in many years. Paul Gigot: I think since the early seventies at least. Elliot Kaufman: Yes. And the problem is it doesn't feel that way because in Gaza there are no good solutions right now. And so one thing that people talk about is could Israel say the war's over, but just continue doing raids into Hamas territory, keep a military presence in various buffer zones and corridors, preventing Hamas from Rearming and preventing it from amassing the kind of forces that could ever do another October 7th attack. So that's not the full withdrawal. It won't satisfy the United Nations, but it could provide Israel the security it needs while allowing it to move on and actually enjoy some of the gains of this by now, very long war. It's an intriguing option, but the risks come from that rebuilding process, especially if the money comes from Qatar whom Israel does not trust. And they say, if you rebuild too early, does Hamas use that to rebuild its tunnels, its infrastructure to sort of reconstitute the governance of Gaza? Can you force Hamas to disarm or go into exile before rebuilding starts? Paul Gigot: Probably not. Elliot Kaufman: Probably not. I think that would be a very difficult political move to pull off. Paul Gigot: Well, look, there are risks on both sides here, and increasingly, I hear from a lot of Americans, many of whom are sympathetic to Israel. That Israel is paying a political price here and not just global opinion with the French and the United Kingdom and Canada saying they'll endorse in September at the United Nations, a Palestinian state. That of course doesn't exist yet, but they'll endorse it nonetheless. In US public opinion, we've seen it in the Democratic Party, which is much more anti-Israel than it has been. There's still some pockets of pro-Israel support in Congress among Democrats, but we're beginning to see a little bit of breaking even among Republicans, certainly not the Trump administration, although there's some frustration sometimes between the Israel government and the US. I mean, is there a real danger for Israel here of losing what has long been bipartisan support in the United States? Elliot Kaufman: The danger is real. In fact, it may be too late to save the bipartisan support. By now that may be baked in. This could have been true before the war. I think certainly now it's very difficult Paul Gigot: Because of the erosion among Democrats. Elliot Kaufman: Yes. Paul Gigot: And particularly younger Democrats. Elliot Kaufman: That's right. And in the Republican Party, I think you still see overall strong support among voters. However, when you talk about Republican influencers online, low-level and mid-level staffers in the Trump administration, it gets more dicey. And so there are risks there as well. I would- Paul Gigot: Some of the isolationist voices inside the administration really do want us to pack away from Israel. Elliot Kaufman: Yes. And represented more there than outside. I would just say that I think the larger risk for Israel is ending this war with Hamas still running Gaza. If that's the case, I think Israel will pay for it diplomatically because people will look at the past two years and say, "What was all that for? Why did you kill all these people for if you didn't even achieve anything?" Paul Gigot: Well, they will have achieved some form of retribution for October 7th, and they will have achieved some sense of greater security because Hamas is not in anywhere near a position to be able to do what it did on October 7th. So they would've accomplished that. Elliot Kaufman: Yes, and that's important, and it needs to make that case. However, I think even if it means fighting on for one month more or two months more, I think in the long run, this will be less important diplomatically even than what the actual result is and what the future of Gaza is. So I think Israel needs to get that right, and the options are very difficult, but big choices right now in the next few days and weeks. Paul Gigot: Yes, some momentous ones for Israel and certainly some repercussions for not just US-Israel relations, but also US interests in the Middle East. All right. Thank you Elliot Kaufman. Thank you all for listening. We're here every day on Potomac Watch. Hope to have you with us tomorrow.
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