Netflix star Lior Raz said in a video posted to X that he joined his ‘brothers in arms’ on Israel’s frontline to save stricken families in the isolated city of Sderot.
Raz, 51, the star of the Israeli hit Fauda, can be seen in the video with the show’s creator, Avi Issacharoff, ducking behind a wall as Hamas rockets are fired overhead.
‘Together with Yohanan Plesner and Avi Issacharoff, I went south to join hundreds of brave ‘brothers in arms’ volunteers who worked tirelessly to assist the population in southern Israel. We were sent to the bombed town of Sderot to extract 2 families,” Faz wrote in the caption.
Faz’s role in the rescue operation has not been confirmed by Israeli officials. As many as 100 people are believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas in the wake of Saturday’s shocking attacks.
Fauda is based on Issacharoff’s real-life experiences in the Israeli Defense Forces. It started in 2015 and is ready for a fifth season. The name translates from Hebrew into English as ‘Chaos.’
Actor Lior Raz pictured himself cowering in terror as Hamas rockets flew over Israel as the Netflix star joined a rescue operation in the southern part of the country.
Raz’s character, Doron Kavillio, is a top agent hunting a Hamas terrorist named The Panther. In addition, Raz appeared in Mary Magdalene with Joaquin Phoenix and 6 Underground with Ryan Reynolds and will appear in Ridley Scott’s long awaited sequel to Gladiator.
In a previous post on his Instagram story, Raz said: ‘Remember who started the carnage. Hamas is an organization that wants to destroy the Jews and does not want to talk about peace under any circumstances.’
“When the war turns, and we promise you that we Israelis will stop it, and Gaza will absorb the losses, remember that we enter this war with a heavy heart, with no desire to kill innocents, and with no choice in the face of those who come against us,’ Raz added.
Both Raz and Issacharoff served in the special forces during their mandatory service in the Israeli army.
Raz was born in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to an Iraqi father and an Algerian mother. His father was a career officer in the Israeli equivalent of the US Navy Seals.
After graduating from high school, Raz enlisted in the counter-terrorism unit, Duvdevan, which means ‘cherry-on-top’.
After his service was up, Raz moved to Los Angeles where he worked as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bodyguard.
‘This is my heritage and why I live in Israel. I am very connected to my heritage and my Judaism. In Israel it is not a question at all. It is something you are born into when you live in the Jewish state. You fight for the Jewish state. You belong to the Jewish state,’ he said of his pride in being Israeli during a 2018 interview.
In Fauda, Raz Doron plays Kavillio, is a top agent hunting a Hamas terrorist named The Panther.
Raz attends Apple TV+’s The Crowded Room New York Premiere at Museum of Modern Art in June 2023
Israel bombed downtown Gaza City on Tuesday and expanded a massive mobilization of reservists, vowing to retaliate against the Hamas militant group that has increasingly left residents of the tiny Palestinian territory nowhere to go.
Four days after militants stormed into Israel and brought gunfire to its streets for the first time in decades, Israel’s military said Tuesday morning that it had regained effective control of its south and the border.
The war has already claimed at least 1,600 hundred lives on both sides – and perhaps many hundreds more. Israel also said that Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza are also holding more than 150 soldiers and civilians hostage.
The conflict is only expected to escalate from here. Israel expanded the mobilization of reservists to 360,000 on Tuesday, according to the country’s media.
And one big question is whether it will launch a ground offensive in Gaza – a tiny strip of land wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean that is home to 2.3 million people and has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.
As UN agencies called for a humanitarian corridor to bring in medical supplies, the Israeli military said it struck hundreds of targets overnight in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, an upscale district that is home to ministries of the Hamas-run government, as well as universities, media organizations and the offices of aid organizations.
After hours of relentless attacks, residents left their homes at dawn to find some buildings torn in half by airstrikes and others reduced to piles of concrete and rebar. Cars were flattened and trees burnt down in residential streets that were transformed into moonscapes.
The devastation in Rimal signaled what could be a new Israeli tactic: warning civilians to leave certain areas and then hitting those areas with unprecedented intensity. If these airstrikes continue, Gaza’s civilians will have fewer and fewer places to shelter as more neighborhoods become uninhabitable.
Israel’s chief military spokesman stressed the unprecedented nature of the current campaign, saying “all options are on the table.”