On the day “Fauda” (airing in Israel on Yes) returned to October 7, “House of the Dragon” also came back for a third season of epic battle scenes and, of course, terrifying creatures spewing hellfire from the sky. Although “Fauda” is by no means a small production, the budget gap between it and HBO’s hit series could fit several tank battalions, the kind that might have helped the residents of the kibbutzim and the survivors of the Nova festival as Hamas slaughtered them.
Season 5 trailer of 'Fauda'
(Video: Courtesy of Yes)
But when even a fraction of that terrible Saturday is experienced through the lens of “Fauda,” there is something tasteless, almost pathetic, about the grandeur of “House of the Dragon.” Its endless global resonance, the result of enormous resources and cultural imperialism, is emptied of any real importance when viewed alongside a chilling television depiction of a horrifying real event, one that in many ways has already continued for 1,000 days and nights, and will go on shaping Israel as a nation for another thousand years. On the other hand, perhaps if dragons had conquered the western Negev while the strongest army in the region simply evaporated, it would have been less painful, less scarring, less humiliating.
The justified trigger warning issued before the episode — which, beyond its powerful reconstruction, echoes elements familiar to anyone exposed to the “atrocities video” — said that viewers would be able to understand “Fauda” even without watching the two episodes. That may be factually true in terms of plot developments, but it is entirely wrong when it comes to fully deciphering the characters’ state of mind and, above all, the narrow, rigid worldview of the series in its fifth season, in which creators Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff have conspicuously abandoned ambitions that were present, to varying degrees, in previous seasons.
Fauda is in the midst of its 5th season
(Photo: Ohad Romano, courtesy of yes)
This is not only the root of the rift between Doron (Raz) and Steve (Doron Ben-David), following a fateful decision made in the field, nor even the bottomless pit into which Eli (Yaakov Zada Daniel) fell after seeing what had been done to his family. The point is that “Fauda” has mobilized all its talent, led by Omri Givon’s suffocating direction, and all its means, including sweaty, bloody action scenes, to present the entire sequence of events in a way that makes clear what happened to many people once the scale of the failure and the disaster became known: the unhinged rage, the tormenting humiliation, the total crisis of trust and the burning desire for revenge, even at the cost of moral collapse.
It will be interesting to see how the show's international audience responds to these two episodes, which flood the screen with images and testimonies that most of the world preferred to repress with dizzying speed — which is why the creators also make a point of showing a Muslim victim of Hamas terrorists. But the local stature of "Fauda" turns its October 7 episodes into a foundational internal document as well.
In that context, not only is it impossible to understand the series without watching these episodes; skipping them means avoiding the black mirror in which all of Israel is reflected.
First published: 11:06, 06.23.26