‘Fauda’ Issues Warning for Viewers: Episodes Based on Oct. 7 Hamas Attack ‘May Be Hard to Watch’
by Shiryn Ghermezian
The cast of “Fauda.” Photo: Ronen Akerman
The producers of the popular Israeli television series “Fauda” released a rare warning for viewers on Sunday about two upcoming episodes in the show’s fifth season that are based on the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israeli television provider Yes TV posted a message on Instagram about episodes 7 and 8, both of which will air Monday in Israel. Yes TV said the episodes will focus on the Oct. 7 attack, and will contain content, sights, and sounds that “may be difficult to watch.”
“It’s important for us to say: These episodes return to that terrible day and stand on their own,” Yes TV added. “If watching them is too difficult, it is also okay to skip them and reconnect with the season’s plot, which will continue in the episode airing next week.”
Season five of “Fauda” premiered on May 18 in Israel on Yes TV and will later launch on Netflix, where viewers around the world can currently watch the show’s first four seasons. The award-winning action series about Israeli covert operatives was created by Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz, who plays lead actor Doron Kabilio in the show. The new season was completely rewritten after the massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, and shows the operatives in Marseilles, France, hunting down Hamas operatives responsible for the deadly attack. Issacharoff wrote on social media that the show’s creators are prouder of this new season than the others because season five will share with the world details about the Oct. 7 atrocities.
“This isn’t just another season or script,” Issacharoff said. “A different season, one that touches on the massacre and the greatest disaster that the State of Israel has ever known, October 7. We are proud of this season perhaps more than its predecessors, because of its importance, the touch on the raw nerve, and the very fact that it will bring to every point in the world the story of all of our personal and national trauma.”
“Fauda” crew member Matan Meir, 38, was killed in action in November 2023 while fighting in the Gaza Strip as a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and the partner of Issacharoff’s stepdaughter was also killed during the war. One of the show’s cast members, singer and actor Idan Amedi, was injured in January 2024 while fighting in Gaza as an IDF reservist but has since recovered.
French actress Mélanie Laurent joins season five of “Fauda” in a leading role and stars alongside Raz, with whom she costarred in the 2019 Netflix title 6 “Underground.”
