“Honestly, I couldn’t speak for the entire two episodes and for a while afterward. Everything felt far too real.” That is one non-Israeli viewer on episodes seven and eight of Fauda’s fifth season, which deal directly with the October 7 massacre. Nearly three years after the attack, the Israeli series is climbing Netflix charts in places where an Israeli drama is a politically loaded thing to watch.
Season 5 reached Netflix worldwide on September 8, after airing first on the Israeli broadcaster yes. Within days it was in the top 10 in dozens of countries. FlixPatrol put it fourth among Netflix television series worldwide on September 10, and sixth at the time Ynet published.
Numbers from the Middle East
The most striking figures came from the region. On September 10, Fauda ranked No. 1 in Lebanon and No. 2 in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. It was No. 3 in Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, No. 4 in Egypt, No. 5 in Morocco and No. 9 in Saudi Arabia.
Lebanon is the oddity, given its anti-Israel boycott law. A Lebanese campaign calling for a boycott of Israel and its supporters has accused Netflix of breaking that law by offering Israeli productions locally, Fauda among them. The campaign said the show promotes “a security narrative inspired by figures who served in the Israeli military.”
Criticism came from elsewhere too. On September 8 the Qatar-based newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed posted that “actors from the series participated in the war of genocide against Gaza.” It pointed to Idan Amedi, who was seriously wounded serving in Gaza, and to remarks it attributed to actor Doron Ben-David in 2023. The release was covered as far away as Yemen.
What viewers wrote
The reactions to episodes seven and eight were intense. One viewer, who said he was neither Israeli nor Jewish, wrote: “I cried my soul out. I usually don’t cry at shows or movies.” A viewer from England wrote that the two episodes “broke me.” Another said it was the first time a television series had given him an anxiety attack.
One man watched the first six episodes in a row, then needed several days before he could face the seventh. He singled out a scene in which Eli’s daughter tells her mother, while the attackers are outside the safe room, “I’m sorry, Mom, I forgot to put the cake back in the refrigerator.” A non-Jewish American viewer called it incredibly important for people to see what Israel went through. A viewer in the Gaza Strip called it “one of the strongest, most suspenseful and compelling seasons of the series.”
Others pushed back hard. A Libyan viewer argued the season offers “a biased narrative” that maligns Palestinians. “The problem is not that it deals with the events of October 7 or that a drama was produced about them,” he wrote. “The problem is the narrative the work presents.”
The creators
Lior Raz, co-creator and star, told Ynet the response caught the team off guard. “We did not expect the intensity of the response around the world,” he said, “and certainly not what is happening with Fauda in Arab countries.” The team wanted a high-quality series that moved Fauda forward and also told the world what Israel experienced on October 7. “This is much more than ratings,” Raz said.
Co-creator Avi Issacharoff said they hoped to bring audiences abroad a story that “burned inside us and inside every Israeli who experienced October 7.” People always say an outsider won’t understand, he added. “We hope that this time, outsiders will understand a little better.”
