Warning: This review contains major spoilers for Season 5 of “Fauda.”
There may be no greater nightmare for a soldier than being unable to protect his country — or for a father than being unable to safeguard his family under fire.
Those twin fears drive the fifth season of “Fauda,” which arrived on Netflix in the United States on Sept. 8. The Israeli thriller remains a must-watch, but its depiction of the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, makes this season especially difficult to watch.
Created by Lior Raz and journalist Avi Issacharoff, “Fauda” follows Doron Kabilio, played by Raz, and an elite Israeli counterterrorism unit whose members disguise themselves as Palestinians to infiltrate terrorist networks. The Arabic word “fauda,” meaning “chaos,” is the warning the team uses when an operation goes wrong and its cover is blown.
Since its Netflix debut in 2016, the series has become known for its nerve-shredding suspense, morally complicated characters and explosive action sequences. In the first-season finale, Doron recites the Shema as he appears moments away from execution, only to be rescued at the last second. Season 5 places him in similarly harrowing situations, but this time the drama is inseparable from a real national trauma.
How Season 5 revisits October 7
Raz and Issacharoff rewrote the season following the October 7 attacks. Rather than begin on that morning, however, the new season opens several years later.
Still consumed by grief and anger, Eli (Yaakov Zada-Daniel) receives a tip that a member of Hamas’ elite Nukhba force is hiding in Marseille, France. He travels there in search of revenge. Doron, aware of the danger Eli could face, follows him, while Steve (Doron Ben-David) flies in from London.
Their fears prove justified when they uncover a Hamas cell led by Saeed al-Khatib, a terrorist mastermind with plans for another large-scale attack.
The story initially unfolds as a tense international manhunt. But Episodes 7 and 8 take viewers back to Oct. 7, revealing what Doron, Eli, Steve and their families experienced as the attacks unfolded. These episodes are the season’s emotional core — and its most agonizing hours.
Eli looks at his watch. It is 6:29 a.m. Rockets streak across the sky.
Doron and Steve soon find themselves driving through a field as terrified young people flee the Nova music festival. They kill several terrorists and attempt to bring survivors to safety, but they are overwhelmed by the scale and speed of the attack.
In one wrenching scene, Doron tries to rescue a young woman hiding with others inside a large container. Blood covers her head as bullets fly around them. Elsewhere, partygoers wait for Israeli soldiers to arrive and save them, unaware that help may not be coming anytime soon.
The show captures the helplessness of that morning: the confusion, the smell of smoke and death, and the desperate belief that someone must be on the way.
Trapped inside a safe room
Some of the season’s most devastating scenes take place inside a family home rather than on the battlefield.
Eli’s wife, Hagit, shelters in the family’s mamad, or reinforced safe room, with their two teenage children and a Muslim neighbor. As terrorists attempt to break in, one casually helps himself to a piece of cake. The attackers then set fire to the door, forcing the family to confront the same impossible decision faced by many Israelis that day: remain inside as smoke fills the room or emerge and risk being killed or kidnapped.
Eventually, a terrorist drags Hagit away and forces her to witness the unthinkable. Zada-Daniel’s frantic attempt to return to his kibbutz is among the season’s most gut-wrenching sequences.
These scenes work because they do not treat Oct. 7 merely as the backdrop for an action series. Instead, the attacks become a rupture that reshapes the characters’ lives, relationships and understanding of their own ability to protect the people they love.
Racing to prevent the next attack
Back in the season’s present-day timeline, the team races to determine where Hamas plans to strike next. Could the target be the Kotel, or Western Wall? Could terrorists attack cemeteries as Israelis gather on Yom HaZikaron to remember the country’s fallen soldiers?
The investigation features plenty of the twists, betrayals and impulsive decisions that “Fauda” fans have come to expect. Doron becomes convinced that one of his Israeli commanders has betrayed him, and a terrorist’s smirk is enough to provoke him into an action he knows will make the mission even more dangerous.
Doron and Eli eventually pose as Palestinian terrorists in an attempt to infiltrate the cell and stop the attack. Discovery would mean torture and almost certain death.
Both men are also suffering from severe trauma. They have witnessed so much violence that simply holding themselves together becomes a battle. Doron recovers fragments of his memory at unexpected moments, and we learn that, following Oct. 7, he sat beneath a tree for days in a bewildered state.
His trauma is not incidental to the story. “Fauda” repeatedly asks what prolonged exposure to death does to the people tasked with preventing more of it — and whether Doron and his teammates have gone too far to find their way back.
Mélanie Laurent enters the world of “Fauda”
Fans of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” will recognize French Jewish actress Mélanie Laurent. In that film, Laurent played Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jewish woman who escaped a Nazi massacre and later devised a plan to kill senior Nazi leaders inside her Paris cinema.
Here, she plays the wife of a terrorist. At first, it is unclear how much she knows about her husband’s activities. After he is killed, however, she becomes determined to avenge his death — even agreeing to wear a suicide vest as part of a plan to murder Jews.
Her commitment begins to waver only when she learns the full extent of the atrocities her husband helped perpetrate.
Laurent gives a controlled, compelling performance and never overplays her character’s rage or grief. Her scenes opposite Raz are among the season’s strongest, in part because both characters understand what it means to be consumed by loss.
The storyline also illustrates one of the series’ bleakest recurring truths: Operatives may be valuable to the organizations that deploy them, but they are ultimately expendable. Individual lives are repeatedly sacrificed in the name of preventing an even greater loss of life.
A strong season with underdeveloped villains
This is one of the strongest seasons of “Fauda,” and Raz delivers an award-worthy performance. Zada-Daniel is equally powerful as Eli, while Itzik Cohen remains excellent as Capt. Gabi Ayub, a commander trusted by his men but shaken by the consequences of his past failures.
The season largely sets romance aside, which is understandable given the urgency of the story. Still, more attention to the characters’ personal relationships could have added emotional depth and given viewers occasional room to breathe between action sequences.
The villains are also less developed than the Israeli characters. With the exception of Iyad, several fail to project the menace or complexity demanded by the plot. Maher Zeytoun, in particular, never feels as formidable as the story needs him to be. The finale is also somewhat predictable.
Although Hamas operatives occasionally explain their motivations, the season could have explored their ideology and individual backgrounds in greater depth. Too often, their belief in martyrdom is presented as a sufficient explanation for their actions rather than the beginning of a more searching examination.
“Fauda” gets stronger as the season unfolds
The early episodes take time to build momentum, but the series becomes more gripping as it progresses. Episodes 7 and 8 are the clear standouts, though the writers maintain suspense throughout the 11-episode season. The unexpected death of a major character near the end carries particular emotional weight.
Amid the violence are powerful quieter moments: an injured Israeli soldier winking at a stuffed teddy bear, or Steve tentatively asking Doron whether they have moved past an earlier conflict. These brief exchanges remind us of the friendships and ordinary lives at stake.
The season also depicts corruption within French intelligence. One officer has secretly worked with Hamas, which advanced his career by feeding him information about Al-Qaeda and ISIS operatives. It is a provocative subplot that suggests the pursuit of professional success can make even security officials vulnerable to manipulation.
As Ayub observes, Doron seems to have 900 lives. Viewers may feel the same way after watching him survive bullets, beatings and explosions that would kill almost anyone else. But in the finale, terrorists disguise themselves as Jews, making them nearly impossible to identify before it is too late. At one especially brutal moment, the camera wisely cuts away rather than showing violence that would have been gratuitously graphic.
“Fauda” has always been about more than revenge. At its best, it explores the murky line between vengeance and justice, as well as the price paid by people who dedicate their lives to protecting others.
Doron remains one of television’s most compelling Israeli heroes. Raz’s eyes convey pain, guilt, pride and determination, sometimes within the same moment. Doron knows that continuing to fight could destroy him, but he also knows he would feel even worse sitting safely on the sidelines.
At one point, he acknowledges that eventually, there will be a mission from which he does not return. Let’s hope “Fauda” itself does return — because even after five seasons, it still has something urgent to say.
