It wouldn’t have been unreasonable for fans of counter-terrorism drama Fauda to expect that when the series returned for a fifth series, October 7 and its aftermath wouldn’t be mentioned. This is, after all, a television drama and not real life.
But for Lior Raz, who co-created the series with Avi Issacharoff, and also stars as retired special forces operative Doron, that was never an option.
“October 7 was a trauma for all of us in Israel,” says Raz, who, following the attacks, discarded everything he had already written for season 5 and went back to the drawing board with Issacharoff.
“We started to write from our trauma. It was the hardest thing we ever did in our lives, because it meant dealing with a wound that’s still open for us as writers, Israelis and for me, as an actor.
“We didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t wait. We needed to write Fauda, and it couldn’t be any other story than this story.
“When Avi and I started writing, there were still hostages in the tunnels. We needed to try to imagine what life would be like two years from then, as that’s when the show is set.”
The new season, which aired earlier this year in Israel, doesn’t pull any punches as Doron faces inner demons and new enemies when an old friend’s unsanctioned revenge mission in Marseilles, France, draws him into a perilous, deep-cover operation.
Two episodes of the 11-part series, which was filmed in Israel and Hungary, return to the events of that terrible day, reflecting what happened to the hit show’s characters and how it changed them.
The scenes are particularly graphic and upsetting, and a warning is given on screen to viewers.
“It was important to show what happened on that day and for people to understand why the characters behave the way they do at the beginning of the series and at the end,” says Raz.
“As an actor, it was hard for me to play someone who has so much pain that he can’t even remember exactly what happened to him. I don’t leave Doron behind when I’m shooting. I must think and live like him. He’s with me all the time.
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Lior Raz as Doron Kavillio in Fauda (Photo: Fauda)Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
“I know from talking to friends and soldiers that sometimes your mind cannot accept what you’ve seen, and you must erase it from your memory to protect yourself. Filming was hard and some actors were collapsing on set and needed someone to hug and to talk to.
“We want to show our story,” continues the 54-year-old, who has four children with his wife, Meital Berdah. “We’re not coming to do hasbara [public diplomacy of Israel] or PR. We’re showing what happened to the characters who millions of people around the world have come to love and care for.”
Antisemitism didn’t start on October 7, he says, but is now on the rise because of a lack of education. “We need to raise our heads and be proud of who we are.”
In a case of life imitating art, Raz rushed back to Israel when he learnt of the attacks.
“I was in Romania to give a lecture and my sister, who was in Kibbutz Erez, called to say they were surrounded by terrorists, which was incredibly hard to hear. Then I saw the television news.
“It was difficult to catch a flight to Israel because when there is a war in Israel, instead of people running away, people come back to fight. But I managed to get a seat and by October 8, I was there and I headed south to Sderot.
“It wasn’t easy, but I helped evacuate families who were stuck there, while terrorists and missiles were all around us.”
Issacharoff also remembers the events of the day vividly.
“I was woken at 6.29am by the sirens going crazy,” says the 52-year-old. “I speak fluent Arabic, so I turned on Al Jazeera and watched Hamas’s leader declaring war on the state of Israel and calling Arabs from all over the Middle East to attack Israel.
“Slowly, news started to emerge from the south and after hearing that people were being kidnapped, we thought it must be some kind of exaggeration. For our plot of season 3 of Fauda, we had two Israelis being kidnapped from Israel to Gaza and people thought we weren’t being realistic. Then this happened. We could see everything from the looting to the burning of houses airing live on Al Jazeera.”
As The Times of Israel’s Middle East analyst, it was difficult for Issacharoff to balance the real-life narrative alongside keeping audiences entertained with a TV drama.
“It was a challenge, because you don’t want it to be a documentary. It must be dramatic and strong enough for people to follow the characters and still be full of twists and turns, just like any other TV script you’d write.
“Season 5 is darker, more emotional, less action and more drama. When we started to write it, my hands were shaking. There were scenes or sequences that we changed after thinking we might have gone too far, or maybe we shouldn’t have gone there. People might criticise us for dealing with this, but in our hearts, we felt we didn’t have any other option.
“This series was inspired by many true events, including the fact that on October 7, some Muslims were killed or taken hostage into Gaza and the kidnappers knew they were Muslim, yet they still did it.
“At the start of the first episode, you have someone saying they need Th’ar – a blood revenge. It’s something very specific for Bedouin tribes that have their own culture. If someone killed one of their own family members, they are obligated to take blood revenge.”
As established, two episodes of the series flash back to October 7. Why did Issacharoff feel it was important to depict events in the way they have been?
“It’s a good question. The first six episodes build the plot and you’re following not only Doron but also Eli (Yaakov Zada-Daniel). And it’s Eli’s journey that, in a way, leads us to episode seven.
“To understand where you find him at the beginning of the series, you must go back.”
And how is this Israeli-produced series received in Arab countries?
“Previous seasons have been received very well indeed. I’m told that it was the number one most viewed television show in Lebanon, which is considered to be an enemy country here in Israel, of course.
“But it’s popular all over the Middle East. We’ve had great articles written about Fauda all over the Arabic-speaking press, from Egypt to the Gulf, and even in some Palestinian media outlets.
“We hope that many people will watch this series and better understand what happened on October 7. There’s an attempt to erase and rewrite history but maybe watching Fauda will make people open their hearts, eyes and ears and understand what this country went through on that terrible day.”
Someone who has already learnt a lot is Hakim Djaziri. The French-Algerian actor plays Saeed el-Hatib, the main terrorist in the new series. In real life, he and his family were forced to flee Islamist violence in Algeria in the 1990s. They escaped to Paris where they ended up in a poor neighbourhood plagued with unemployment, drugs and more Islamists. He describes himself as a “lost boy”, someone who, for a few months, was rubbing shoulders with the very people his family had tried to escape before he managed to turn his life around.
Hakim Djaziri as Saeed al-Hatib in Fauda (Photo: Netflix)Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
“After we cast Hakim, we had a very long conversation and he told me all about what happened to him and his family,” says Issacharoff. “It was fascinating and he is a great guy. When the war with Iran started, he stayed here in Tel Aviv, as did French actress Melanie Laurent, who also stars in this series. He fell in love with Israel.”
Hakim agrees that he fell in love with the Jewish state, but acknowledges he was apprehensive about how he’d be received once he had accepted the role which required him to bulk up, and also learnt English and Palestinian Arabic.
“If I’m honest, I was a little afraid before we started filming. I’m an Arab and a Muslim from the West and we only see a small part of what’s happening in the Middle East,” he explains.
“But I came into an atmosphere of love, kindness and respect that I’d never experienced before. I stayed two months and was invited to Shabbat meals. I am now back in Paris but often return to Israel see my friends and I’d love to rent an apartment there.”
A long-standing fan of Fauda who has watched the entire series several times over, Hakim, who is also set to appear in the third series of BBC1’s SAS Rogue Heroes, was thrilled to land a major part and says he drew on his dark past experiences to play it.
“My character is very complex. Saeed is a man of full duality, born to be a leader and a man of power. He enjoys inspiring fear and admiration. He’s brilliant, but he has a psychopathic side.
“He understands religion, but everything about him is ideological. I knew this way of thinking and his kind of motivation, and I was sure that I could play him correctly.
“My parents held important positions in Algeria and I had a happy childhood there until I was 13 when civil war broke out, a war between Islamists and the Algerian state.
“My parents became targets because of their positions and we fled to France in a hurry. They had to start over and couldn’t get the same work and I went through some very difficult times as a result. Looking back, I was a teenager suffering trauma from the war, harassment at school and discomfort at my parents’ new social situation, which was so difficult to see when they’d been highly respected intellectuals in Algeria.
“It all hurt me deeply, and then I encountered the Islamists that we had fled in Algeria. I was lost, I’d been expelled from school, and then I experienced radicalisation.”
"Less action, more drama": (L to R) Hakim Djaziri as Saeed el-Hatib and Melanie Laurent as Anne Aubert in Fauda. (Photo: Netflix)Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
But then, quite by chance, he found the world of theatre, a discovery he credits with saving his life.
“My dream of becoming an actor was born. I stopped messing around and I knew that if I didn’t succeed, my future would be very complicated. Now, 23 years later, I am proud of my journey.
“Not only am I an actor, I am a writer, a theatre director and a screenwriter.”
And someone who finds himself in the unlikely position of explaining the Israel-Palestine question to non-Jews in France.
“When you talk about the conflict or working with Israelis, you’re under fire. Some people even consider me a traitor for working on an Israeli production. But my journey, my experience of Islamism, means I’m in a position to explain things to French society and warn them of the dangers of radicalisation. And as someone who has always refused to give in to fear if I had said no to this job it would have been a betrayal of my values.
“It is so important for the world to see what happened on October 7 and this series of Fauda shows people. It is a difficult watch, but it’s an important one.”
Fauda series 5 is available is on Netflix from Tuesday September 8
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