When fiction merges with reality. Monday January 8, Israeli actor and singer Idan Amedi was seriously injured in fighting in the Gaza Strip, his father announced to several Israeli media. The 35-year-old man is a reservist in an IDF engineering unit. Since 2017, he has played on screen a member of Fauda, the eponymous elite unit of the Israeli series. Transported to the Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan in the afternoon, the actor underwent extensive surgery. According to Channel 12, his life is no longer in danger.
On Instagram, Idan Amedi’s cousin asked for support from Internet users. She urged her fans to “stop everything and pray” for the recovery of “Idan ben Tova,” his Hebrew name. Announcing the actor’s injury, the official account of the Fauda series praised “one of the kindest, warmest and most passionate people we know”, and asked “everyone to respect their privacy and that of his family.
A few days before being injured, Idan Amedi called for an end to internal dissension in Israel, in a video message relayed by the Times of Israel. “After 90 days of fighting, we continue to destroy the short-range missile sites, launch sites and command facilities of the Hamas terrorist organization. I join my fellow reservists in appealing to politicians, to all the media and to everyone: whoever has nothing good to say, keep quiet. The people of Israel will live.”
Idan Amedi first gained notoriety as a singer in Israel. Throughout his career, which began in 2010, he has composed and performed songs about his experience as a combatant during his military service in the IDF Combat Engineer Corps. But it was in 2017 that he achieved international fame, joining the cast of Fauda. This Israeli series broadcast from 2015 features an elite unit specializing in infiltration into Palestinian territory.
Over the course of four seasons, the members of this group, directly inspired by the Mista’arvim units, track down Hamas and Islamic State officials by blending in with the population of the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. Idan Amedi plays the character of Sagi Tzur, who joins the elite unit during the series.
At the beginning of November, one of the producers of the program broadcast on Netflix, Matan Meir, was killed during the fighting in the Gaza Strip. The man was the victim, along with five other soldiers, of an explosion in a tunnel in the north of the enclave. Many actors from the series have joined the ranks of the IDF or participated in the war effort since October 7. Two days after the deadly Hamas attack, the main character of Fauda, played by Lior Raz, filmed himself behind a wall in Sderot, under Hamas rockets, during a mission to rescue civilians.
