Naza directors reject IDF criticism of Gaza targeting film

A documentary called Naza has renewed scrutiny of Israeli military targeting in Gaza after its directors gave a detailed defence of the film in the face of strong criticism from Israel.

The film takes its name from an Israeli military acronym used to refer to civilian collateral damage. Its directors, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham, said it was the result of years of investigative reporting and interviews in Hebrew with 24 Israeli soldiers and officers involved in attacks on Gaza. Those interviews describe the use of advanced surveillance techniques, questionable military procedures and artificial intelligence to select and authorise attacks in the enclave, often with families or other civilians nearby.

Naza received a record 24-minute standing ovation at this year's Venice Film Festival and won a special prize. But it has divided opinion. In Israel, the directors have been accused of treason, received death threats and drawn the anger of the Israeli prime minister. He said he would bring forward government-sponsored laws to revoke the citizenship of anyone who defames Israeli Defence Force soldiers and to increase damages for defamation by a factor of 20.

The Israeli Defence Force pushed back strongly. It dismissed the documentary, saying it contained substantial factual errors, and said the witnesses interviewed had a limited view of a multi-layered process. It insisted its rules of engagement follow strict distinctions between combatants and civilians.

In an interview about the film, Abraham said it was about dehumanisation. He said it tried to reveal the systems of mass killing and the psychological system that allows people to take part. He said some soldiers who spoke to the filmmakers felt regret, but not all. He added that there was still no understanding of the heaviness of what they described, including the killing of children, women and men in their homes, and that dehumanisation in Israeli society was very deep.

The interview also addressed the Israeli military's own rebuttal and criticism that the film lacks context about feeling in Israel after the October 7th Hamas attacks. Abraham said the film gives space and weight to those events, showing burnt kibbutzim and soldiers speaking about how the attacks affected them. He rejected the criticism as coming from people who perhaps had not watched the film. He said the documentary would be released for free online soon. On claims about specific strikes, including one case where 500 civilians were said to have been killed, he said the team had checked details on the back end but often could not put them in front of the camera because of the risk to interviewees. He said the prime minister had said those who spoke should be pursued, and that extraordinary measures had been taken to protect their identities.

The directors also described how targeting rules changed after October 7th. They said the Naza digit was the acceptable number of civilians who could be killed for each Hamas operative that moves, and that the result was thousands of people killed. Before the attacks, they said, Israel would sometimes target a senior Hamas operative in their home knowing that the person's wife, children, grandchildren or parents might also die. After October 7th, there were tens of thousands of such targets, including people so junior ranking that those doing the targeting did not remember their names. The directors said AI, including a program called Lavender, was sometimes used to identify people as being in Hamas. They said the system had an error rate and that some people marked as targets were not even confirmed members, often from the political wing rather than the military wing. They described this as an abandonment of what constitutes a legitimate target and the principle of proportionality.

Abraham's final message was that the situation is a choice. He said things do not have to continue this way, that there should be accountability for those who led what he called a campaign of killing and dehumanisation, and that Palestinian and Israeli human life should matter the same. Naza, he said, treats an entire family in a building as a number, and that is what needs to change.