Directed by two of the co-directors of the 2024 Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s latest film NAZA places Israel’s responsibility for the mass murder of innocent Palestinians in Gaza front and center. NAZA which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month made its North American premiere in the Main Slate section of the 64th New York Film Festival.

Though Israeli leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu have vilified the filmmakers and threatened to revoke their Israeli citizenship for treason, “the Guardian will make NAZA available for global audiences for free.” After its theatrical run, they will “release NAZA via theguardian.com in late November as part of its commitment to fearless, independent journalism.”

The International Federation of Journalists report that the war or genocide in Gaza (the term depends upon whom you speak to) is the deadliest conflict for media professionals ever. In fact reports state that around 247-260 journalists have been killed since October 7, 2023. Because much of what has been happening in Gaza has been censored, journalists face the pressure of jail or death for writing or photographing what goes on there. In other words, Israel has established a punishing media blackout while affirming its democracy.

Knowing theirs and their subjects lives’ would be in danger, Abraham and Szor decided to report on the knowledge that global journalists and the global flotillas that tried to bring aid to the starving Palestinians already possess. So they risked their lives to get the information past Israel’s fierce media blackout. They did this knowing Israel’s leaders banned the use of the word genocide and persuaded countries like the UK and US to label as antisemitism anyone calling out Israel for its Gaza genocide. Indeed, Israel’s stance has been if massacres of families, men, women and children in the thousands happened, war/combat justified their deaths.

Thus, the filmmakers counted the cost as they canvassed individuals who corroborated and testified to atrocities happening in Gaza numbering over 100. But these were used as leads and for triangulated testimony. In this process of investigative journalism filmmakers wanted an insiders’ perspective to ring out loudly and clearly. They wanted those who agreed to go on record.

Why? Because it would be much more difficult to dismiss and deny insider whistleblowers who would describe their AI bombing technology like “Where’s Daddy” or “Lavender.” It would be harder to propagandize elite military confessing their feelings about killing innocents referred to as NAZA, a Hebrew military acronym for Nezek Agavi. NAZA translates to “collateral damage” or the estimated number of civilian deaths accepted during a military strike. Rather than use the words “baby,” “mother,” “children,” “old people,” NAZA became the preferred word to desensitize those giving the go ahead to bomb a building with numbers of civilians not in active combat against the IDF.

But how does one secure elite Israeli intelligence officials and military personnel to report on the AI technological systems and AI programs used to systematically hunt down, then bomb NAZA at night when they are at home?

On a fact finding mission, the film builds “on revelations first published by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, and the Guardian between 2023 and 2025.” Promising to protect their sources typical of investigative journalists, Abraham and Szor elicited 24 elite Israeli military officers to become whistleblowers. Maintaining their subjects’ anonymity, the filmmakers disguised their voices and placed them in shadows and darkness with only their outlines showing. As a backdrop, Szor and Abraham filmed the perpetrators of war crimes as Abraham interviewed them on the rooftops of buildings in Tel Aviv.

Symbolically, they shoot the footage of these 24 confessors and their interviewer against the beautifully modern, city lighted at night. Tel Aviv’s name in Hebrew means “white city.” Filmmakers include archived clips of the city “built on the sand” founded in 1909 by the Rothschild family and others.

The elite intelligence agents testified for various reasons. Some confessed out of curiosity or to be in a film. Others answer Abraham’s questions to promote themselves. As you listen to their testimonies you hear their emotions and attitudes. Some boast about enjoying killing as part of an elite, specially selected group with a vital mission.

Initially, right after the Hamas attack, the officers relished bombing Palestinians. Increasingly, they used AI technology. All Palestinians surveilled 24/7 via their phones had listed addresses and could be targeted down to the floor their apartments occupied to the number of people in the apartments. According to the intel officers, those in Gaza knew and know Israeli intel surveils them. At times these elites stated that from their screens hunting down their “prey” felt like a video game. However, as time progressed and these elite officers became self-aware, their attitudes changed and some regretted what they did.

The self-aware military intel talk to expiate their guilt. Interestingly, after the repetition of deaths in the thousands as the killings continue to this day, the subjects admit to making mistakes and to the AI programs making mistakes. For example sometimes no one from Hamas occupied the building. Only NAZA occupied the building. Whether 10 or 5 or 13, whether children or grandparents, aunts or uncles, the elite intel agent gave the order to bomb the NAZA, quantifiable as acceptable collateral damage. Daily killings happened regardless of Palestinian culpability whether Hamas were present or not. At the end one of the elite military whistleblowers calls what they did and still do a genocide.

Having written articles for the Guardian, and Palestinian outfits +972 Magazine and Local Call Abraham felt that live testimony by those elite officials systematically bombing neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street would explicitly define what Israeli leaders refused to characterize as anything but self-defense.

At times Szor’s cinematography picks up interiors of Israelis who enjoy enjoy dinner in their apartments with family, or watch the TV news. Obviously, they took this footage before Donald Trump illegally declared war (bypassing Congress) on Iran because Tel Aviv has been bombed and hundreds of Israelis have left the country. These facts Israel censors. However, the filmmakers’ edits contrasting Israelis enjoying their evenings at home versus the bombed Palestinians surrounded by rubble, their homes annihilated, stuns. We see how The Israeli government affords peace and comfort to one group at night while these elite military officers explain that they go on night hunts to kill because that is maybe when Hamas can be found with family.

One elite official proud of his stature and mission says “We bomb at night. That’s when they’re at home.” But we learn from the elite remote bombing squad that often, they missed the Hamas individual. Identifying how many NAZA occupy the building, the elite squad kills anyway because they have achieved an acceptable limit of NAZA. Regardless, Palestinians die; that is the point.

Importantly, the dispassionate, unloaded term NAZA objectifies children, mothers, aunts, fathers, family. Conveniently, it depersonalizes the empathy of elite intel officers. To form an expert killing machine, the term NAZA works to dehumanize. It also works as a film title to expose a genocide from the perspectives of elite military officers willing to go on the record to explain the systematic annihilation.

For the write-up at the NYFF 2026 go to https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/naza/