Action! Fauda star Lior Raz reveals UK air date for new series… with film to follow

It’s the news Fauda fans have been desperately waiting for – the hit show, based on an undercover IDF unit which has been a phenomenon worldwide, returns to Netflix in January.

The longed-for fourth series aired in Israel last summer but international fans have had to wait patiently. Lead actor and creator Lior Raz and his co-writer, journalist Avi Issacharoff revealed not only that the fourth series will be on early next year but also that they are in early talks to make a Fauda film, while hosting a charity event for Israeli ambulance service Magen David Adom while in London.

The fourth series will have its official premiere and launch next week in India where it has proved such a huge hit that a local version of the show is being made based on a covert operation unit working in Kashmir in 2017.

‘We are talking about a movie very seriously,’ Lior, 50, who plays heartthrob lead actor Doron, also told the 110-strong dinner crowd of patrons at the Island Grill in London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel. ‘As to whether there will be more seasons, we don’t know yet. We are open to it.’

The series is based on Lior and Avi’s real life experiences in elite undercover unit Sayeret Duvdevan. Although, at first, their story was turned down by most of the Israeli networks, it proved a huge hit once a producer was eventually found and has proved to be a success in the most unusual of places because of the humanity it gives both sides of the bitter Israel and Palestine war.

‘Fauda was one of the number one shows in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar,’ revealed Lior. ‘Just a few weeks ago there was a huge front-page photograph of me in one of Egypt’s biggest newspapers. I was worried about how it meant I might be wanted! But it was about how the show has changed the way young people see Israelis.

‘Before, they only knew us as practically like Nazis – that’s how we were portrayed – but now they understand who we are. It is the same in Israel – people on the right wing tell us: ‘This is the first time we feel compassionate about the other side’.

‘Just a few weeks ago the Bahraini ambassador to the US was being interview about the peace process and he began by saying, ‘I watched Fauda on Netflix.’ We are definitely changing the way people see each other and we now setting up a new content hub between the UAE and Israel to bring creators from Israel and the Arab world together – with true creation we can have more understanding between Arabs and Jews.’

The fourth series of Fauda takes the team – who ventured into Gaza in the last season – even further afield, to Lebanon and Belgium.

‘The reaction to Fauda doesn’t stop surprising us,’ says Avi, 49. ‘In Israel there was such an emotional reaction to the fourth season that people went crazy. We thought they might have got used to the show but when you watch the series, I hope you will understand why people became so obsessed with this season in particular.’