French-Algerian actor Hakim Djaziri plays one of the central villains in Fauda Season 5. But behind the character is an extraordinary personal story involving Islamist violence in Algeria, his own brief descent into radicalization as a young man, the theater career he credits with changing his life, and a decision to work on an Israeli production that has led some to brand him a “traitor.”
Djaziri plays Saeed al-Khatib, the season’s main antagonist, a terrorist mastermind operating from Marseille and plotting a major attack against Israel roughly two years after the October 7 massacre.
The role carries particular significance given Djaziri’s own history.
His Family Fled Islamist Violence in Algeria
Djaziri was born in Algeria in 1981 to a father who held a senior position in the health administration and a mother who worked as a psychologist.
His childhood was transformed by Algeria’s brutal civil conflict of the 1990s, commonly known as the Black Decade. As Islamist violence spread, Djaziri says his parents became targets because of their positions in society.
“My father, a senior civil servant, and my mother, a psychologist, were among the priority targets,” he recalled in a January 2026 interview with French publication Le Chronoscope.
According to Djaziri, his parents survived several attacks, while he and his younger brother were also threatened. After another attempt in 1994, his father decided the family had to leave Algeria.
They fled to France and settled in Aulnay-sous-Bois outside Paris. But instead of immediately finding the stability they expected, Djaziri encountered a different world of poverty, unemployment, drugs and violence.
The family’s social standing also collapsed. His father, once a respected senior official in Algeria, had to rebuild his life from scratch, while his mother took cleaning work despite having worked as a psychologist.
For the teenage Djaziri, the upheaval was profound.
How Hakim Djaziri Became Radicalized
Djaziri has spoken unusually openly about what happened next.
He struggled at school, experienced bullying and was eventually expelled from high school. By the beginning of the 2000s, he described himself as angry, directionless and without much hope for his future.
That made him vulnerable to Islamist radicals operating around him.
“I was a lost kid,” he told Walla in a June 2026 interview. For approximately six or seven months, he became involved with a radical Islamist group.
Djaziri is emphatic about an important distinction: he says he was radicalized, but he was never a jihadist and never committed violence.
He has also criticized French media outlets that previously characterized him as an “ex-jihadist turned actor,” saying that description was false.
His experience instead became central to his later work examining why vulnerable young people can be drawn toward extremist ideologies.
Djaziri argues that radicalization does not suddenly appear. In his telling, his own journey involved years of displacement, humiliation, anger, social isolation and eventually exposure to people offering him an ideology that appeared to provide meaning.
Theater Changed His Life
The turning point came almost accidentally.
Djaziri encountered young people performing at the Jacques-Prévert theater in Aulnay-sous-Bois and became fascinated by what he saw.
He joined.
For a period, he lived what he described as essentially a double life, participating in theater while remaining involved with a radical religious environment that condemned artistic expression.
Then he was given the lead role in an end-of-year performance.
The experience of performing and receiving an audience’s applause gave Djaziri something that radical ideology had not: a future he actually wanted.
“Theater saved my life,” he later told Walla.
He abandoned the radical movement and began the long process of rebuilding his life around acting.
Years later, that experience inspired Désaxé, an autobiographical play examining radicalization, exile and the circumstances that can push a young person toward extremism.
Djaziri subsequently built a career as an actor, writer and director while using his work to explore radicalization and political violence.
His screen credits include the 2024 French-Algerian film Barbès, little Algérie, alongside television, short-film and audio work.
Then came Fauda.
Why He Said Yes to ‘Fauda’
Accepting a major role in an Israeli television series proved controversial among some people around Djaziri.
He told Walla that he received hostile messages and criticism from people who objected to his participation in an Israeli production.
“A lot of people consider me a traitor because I played in an Israeli production,” he said.
Djaziri nevertheless says rejecting Fauda simply because it was Israeli would have contradicted his principles.
He is strongly opposed to cultural boycotts and argues that art should provide a place where people connect rather than another arena in which they separate themselves from one another.
“If I had refused Fauda, it would have been an insult to my values,” he said.
He also told Walla that participating in the series was important to him because of its engagement with October 7 and its consequences.
The irony of the role is difficult to miss.
Djaziri, who says Islamist extremists targeted his family and who later escaped his own period of radicalization, is now portraying the principal terrorist antagonist in one of Israel’s best-known television series.
And unlike his character, Djaziri says his experience making Fauda brought him considerably closer to Israel.
‘Fauda’ Turned Djaziri Into an Admirer of Israel
Djaziri spent significant time in Israel while filming Season 5 and spoke enthusiastically about the experience.
According to Walla, he divides his life between Paris and southern France, but his time working in Israel left such an impression that he has even considered purchasing a home in the country.
He also expressed particular affection for Tel Aviv.
The experience is especially striking given the criticism he says he has received in France for agreeing to work with Israelis.
Djaziri told Walla that directors and fellow actors questioned his decision and that he expects the pressure to intensify when the season reaches Netflix’s global audience.
His response is that he intends to continue explaining his position and advocating dialogue rather than cultural isolation.
For Djaziri, that position appears closely connected to what theater did for him decades earlier: exposing him to people, emotions and ideas beyond the rigid worldview in which he had become trapped.
From Radicalization to Playing ‘Fauda’s’ Main Villain
Fauda Season 5 takes place approximately two years after October 7 and finds Doron and his team dealing with the trauma of the massacre while confronting a new terrorist threat.
That threat ultimately leads them to Djaziri’s Saeed al-Khatib in Marseille.
It is a role that creates an unusual overlap between fiction and the actor’s real life.
Djaziri grew up amid Islamist violence. His family fled it. As a troubled young man, he briefly became attracted to radical ideology himself. Theater helped him walk away from it, and he eventually transformed those experiences into art intended to help audiences understand how radicalization happens.
Decades later, that same journey has brought him to an Israeli production about terrorism, identity and the consequences of political violence.
For some, joining Fauda made Hakim Djaziri a “traitor.”
For Djaziri, it appears to represent precisely the opposite: a refusal to allow nationality, politics and conflict to dictate whom an artist is permitted to work with.
