KUALA LUMPUR: Idan Amedi, a top Israeli actor best known for his role as a special forces soldier in the hit Netflix series Fauda, has been badly wounded while fighting for Israel's military against Hamas.
According to an article by CNN, the actor's family said the 35-year-old is currently in critical condition and is being treated at Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Centre near Tel Aviv.
However, the actor's father told Walla!, an Israeli website, that "there is no danger to Amedi's life".
Shortly before Amedi was wounded, he spoke to an Israeli television channel, Channel 12, about his experience fighting in Gaza.
"It's crazy what Hamas has built here," he said, referring to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) allegation that Hamas has built a labyrinth of tunnels that spans the entirety of the strip — an underground network used to transport people and goods and to store ammunition.
"We found kilometres of tunnels here, weaponry, even special weaponry. We've been busy (for) the past two days trying to destroy it," he told the TV channel.
Following the Oct 7 attack, Amedi had volunteered to fight for the Israeli military in Gaza, according to Fauda's co-creators, Lior Raz and Avi Issacharaoff.
In an interview with Walla!, the co-creators called Amedi a true hero.
"Idan is a true hero. From the first day of the war, he decided to put everything aside and go fight. First in the north and then in the south of Gaza."
Other prominent Israelis, including fold-rock singer Shlomo Artzi and minister without portfolio Chili Tropper, wished the actor a speedy recovery.
Amedi, who is of Kurdish descent, enjoyed immense popularity in the 2010s as a singer-songwriter before joining the cast of Fauda in 2017. In the series, he plays a member of an Israeli special forces unit, where an agent comes out of retirement to hunt for a Palestinian fighter he thought he had killed.
During the ongoing offensive in Gaza, which has entered day 95, more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, and more than 59,000 others have been injured. At least 185 Israeli soldiers have died and more than 1,000 others have been wounded in the fighting.