Countering NAZA by setting the record straight

A 49-minute Israeli documentary featuring IDF commanders and intelligence officers speaking on the record about the war in Gaza has been released online as a direct response to NAZA, the Venice prize-winning film that alleges systematic civilian targeting by the army.

NAZA: The Real Story is free to watch and was shared by the Israeli Embassy to the United States on X shortly after its release, saying a new Israeli documentary was “setting the record straight”.

The film answers NAZA, directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, which premiered in competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, won the Special Jury Prize and received a 24.5-minute ovation. It was also well received at the New York Film Festival.

NAZA centres on interviews with 24 Israeli military and intelligence personnel, filmed at night on Tel Aviv rooftops with their faces and voices digitally altered. NAZA is an acronym for the Hebrew term nezek agavi, or collateral damage, used to indicate the number of civilian deaths accepted in a strike.

NPR‘s review said the film includes a claim that 500 such deaths were approved for a single high-value target, and describes the use of artificial intelligence in gathering intelligence on targets. The review noted that the anonymity of the interviewees is contested. Israel’s supporters say it discredits the testimony, while Palestine’s supporters have criticised the film for shielding people who describe their own involvement.

The IDF rejects the film’s central claims. After its representatives viewed it, the army published a detailed response on October 1, describing the film as presenting a “distorted, misleading and disingenuous picture”, according to Jewish News UK. It said strike decisions are made by human personnel and not by artificial intelligence, and that it had never authorised an attack anticipating 500 civilian deaths.

Shot in a style that mimics the original, also on Tel Aviv rooftops at night, NAZA: The Real Story takes a different approach. Rather than anonymous testimony, it features named senior IDF commanders, intelligence officers and soldiers, including officers responsible for the chain of command that approves airstrikes. According to the documentary website, the material shown was cleared for publication.

The film’s central argument is that Hamas fought from inside civilian areas. Interviewees describe fighters in civilian clothes, weapons stored in homes, schools, mosques and a hospital, and tunnel shafts inside houses, including one they say was hidden behind a child’s room. The website describes these as the claims of the people who were there.

The interviewees say the IDF operated under strict rules for opening fire as a result. They describe strikes requiring approval depending on rank, schools and hospitals being marked as sensitive sites, civilians being warned to leave, and a rule that soldiers did not fire when in doubt. One describes a fight that began when fighters fired from a kindergarten, in which he says five soldiers were wounded.

On aid, interviewees say the IDF coordinated convoys and medicine, including medicine for hostages, and that Hamas took over convoys from the first day and kept part of the aid. The film puts photos, footage and documents on screen, including rooms where interviewees say weapons were found.

The film is credited to Roi Danino, Ariel Averbuch and Hagay Gutman. Danino is an IDF reserve lieutenant colonel who served more than 600 days with the Nahal Brigade during the war, while Averbuch is an attorney and IDF reserve major, who is co-founder and chairman of Sword of Gideon, which describes its work as combating antisemitism through international advocacy. Gutman is chief editor of morning television shows in Israel and has led documentary projects and web series.

Variety reported that the film’s website claimed more than 20 million views within days of release. However, this figure has not been independently verified. Variety also quoted the Jerusalem Post as reporting that the creators are using digital influencers and grassroots international networks to distribute the film to policymakers and journalists.

The Venice film has drawn a sharp reaction in Israel. NPR reported that Abraham and Szor have been denounced as traitors. According to The Times of Israel, IDF chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir has instructed the military’s top legal official to examine possible legal action against the film and those involved, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged legislation to strip citizenship from those who slander IDF soldiers abroad. According to sources, Culture Minister Miki Zohar said he would act to revoke the directors’ citizenship.

One of the most personal responses to NAZA came from former Hamas hostage Omer Shem Tov, who wrote about the film in The Wall Street Journal, before The Real Story appeared. Shem Tov was taken from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, and spent 505 days in captivity in Gaza before his release in February 2025. The Times of Israel reported that he wrote of knowing first-hand what it means to be collateral damage.

“There was much to fear in captivity. Hunger. My captors. Never seeing my family again. But I also feared the Israeli air force. The Israeli pilots overhead had no idea where I was,” Shem Tov wrote in the WSJ.

“Sometimes when my captors expected an Israeli attack was coming, they fled and left me behind. If an Israeli bomb killed me, Hamas would win twice: I would be dead, and Israel would be responsible,” he continued.

Shem Tov recounted an instance when the mother of one of his captors received a phone call from the IDF warning her of an imminent airstrike.

“Hamas knew where I was and left me to die. Israel didn’t know my location, but it knew where my captor’s mother was and called to make sure she wasn’t killed accidentally,” he wrote. “There I was – kidnapped, starved and tortured by her son – while my army was trying to keep his mother alive.”

Shem Tov said, “Israel desperately wanted me home. But not at any price. There were Palestinian civilians between Israel and me. So Israel dropped leaflets, sent messages, made phone calls and ordered evacuations. It tried to minimise NAZA, or collateral damage.”

“If Israel had cared less about NAZA, perhaps I would have come home sooner,” he added. “Fewer Israeli soldiers might have died. Fewer hostages might have died. But more Palestinians would have.”

He added that the Venice ovation was painful for a former hostage to hear, because the film as reported did not appear to acknowledge people like him.

“As a former hostage, those minutes felt like a shower of knives. Not because the film shows Palestinian suffering, which is real and deserves to be seen. What hurts is that the film, as it has been reported, doesn’t seem to see me.”

The two films now sit on opposite sides of a dispute that turns largely on sourcing. The Venice documentary relies on anonymous interviewees whose identities and roles the IDF says it cannot verify, while The Guardian says its sources include senior commanders.

The rebuttal offers named interviewees, but they are serving or former IDF personnel speaking with the army’s cooperation, and its creators have advocacy or political affiliations.

The claims in both films remain contested.

NAZA: The Real Story is free to watch at nazadocumentary.com, with subtitles in 33 languages.