An Israeli couple held hostage for 20 hours by Hamas militants bought themselves time while waiting to be rescued by offering their captors beverages, making jokes, and asking for lessons in Arabic.

After a rocket siren forced Rahel Edri and her husband to enter the bomb shelter in their Ofakim home, five men claiming to be police officers broke in and began giving orders, Edri told Walla, according to Haaretz.

The men, who were speaking Arabic, forced the couple upstairs, broke both of their phones and began rummaging through their closets.

“They pointed a gun at me and held a grenade over my head,” Edri recalled. “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 men then told Edri that they were heroes and that their children supported their actions.

While the couple was being held hostage, the men would frequently check the windows of the home to ensure no one was coming to their rescue.

In a bid to buy more time, Edri began talking and joking around with her captors.

“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, recalling how nervous she felt at the time that her saviors would accidentally shoot her or her husband.

“Instead of killing us, the terrorists ran to various locations and hid until they were shot at,” Edri said. “I want to thank the police. They are our heroes.”

Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip launched the worst attack on Israel in about 50 years on Saturday.

An estimated 800 Israelis have been killed, more than 2,000 are wounded, and 100 are confirmed to have been taken captive by Hamas since the war began.

At least nine Americans have been killed in the violence and others remain missing, a National Security Council spokesman told CNN on Monday. 

Gaza health officials report at least 300 Palestinians have been killed with 2,200 injured.