For some Israelis, criticizing the military’s conduct in Gaza is beyond the pale

An Israeli documentary about the war in Gaza that won accolades at the Venice Film Festival has caused a national uproar at home, where almost no one has seen it. The directors still hope Israelis will have a chance to watch their film – and begin confronting difficult questions about the Israeli military’s conduct in the war.The film is called “NAZA,” an Israeli military abbreviation for collateral damage. It addresses the topic of Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. And it’s based on anonymous testimonies from Israeli service members, filmed by co-directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor on Tel Aviv rooftops under the cover of darkness. These accounts include details about how the Israeli military used artificial intelligence systems to select targets and calculate the projected civilian toll in airstrikes.The film has yet to be screened in Israel. Journalists here say they haven’t had a chance to preview it either. One of the few clips from the film circulating online shows a whistleblower describing the army’s computer interface. Each building in the Gaza Strip is mapped out, the man explains in Hebrew. “I can click on a house and see how many people will be hurt when it’s struck,” he says. Mr. Abraham and Ms. Szor won international acclaim with their first film. “No Other Land,” about the destruction of a Palestinian community in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, won an Oscar for best documentary in 2025. Their latest film, “NAZA,” premiered Sept. 10 at the Venice International Film Festival and earned the festival’s Special Jury Prize. The duo received a record-breaking 25-minute standing ovation as well.“There are 24 soldiers here who testify about very grave acts,” Mr. Abraham told Israel’s Channel 13 in an interview on Monday. “[You can’t] not pay attention to soldiers who describe how they systematically ruin neighborhoods, destroy neighborhoods, and shoot every Palestinian who tries to return.”Mr. Abraham did not respond to the Monitor’s requests to be interviewed, or to view “NAZA.” The Israel military’s counterassault on Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas destroyed much of the coastal territory and killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, both civilians and combatants. The Israeli public’s attention has remained focused on the assault by Hamas on that day, which killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and the taking of 253 hostages.This isn’t the first time Israeli soldiers have come forward to speak out about misconduct in the war. But the blowback against “NAZA” has been particularly vitriolic.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the directors of antisemitism. And on Wednesday, he proposed advancing a bill to revoke Israeli citizenship for “anyone who slanders [Israeli] soldiers … because their place isn’t with us.” Army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the film was “based on blood libels,” and culture minister Miki Zohar raised accusations of possible treason and asked the country’s Interior Ministry to evaluate whether the directors could be stripped of their Israeli citizenship. Amir Cohen/ReutersA man rides a scooter as he passes graffiti depicting Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the directors of the documentary film "NAZA," and the word "traitors" in Hebrew, on a wall in Ashdod, southern Israel, Sept. 15, 2026. "NAZA" was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival, and is built around anonymous interviews with Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers involved in the war in Gaza. “Someone who makes content of this sort needs to get out of this country, he doesn’t need to be part of this country,” Mr. Zohar told 103FM radio.Under Israeli law, the interior minister could seek a court’s approval for revoking the citizenship of someone convicted of treason or aggravated espionage, provided it wouldn’t leave a person stateless. Barak Medina, a law professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says there is no precedent for stripping these two filmmakers of their Israeli citizenship, and called the threat to do so “cheap talk for elections.”Nonetheless, Dr. Medina says it “still might have … a chilling effect on others,” and is “not something that we can ignore.” Israeli civil society groups, journalists, and filmmakers have rallied to the defense of Mr. Abraham and Ms. Szor. An online petition calling on “everyone who’s still fighting for freedom of expression and creativity” had garnered over 1,800 signatures by Wednesday evening. Israel’s journalists’ union and the Israel Directors Guild have also condemned the threats leveled against the two filmmakers as an attack on free expression.While Mr. Abraham and Ms. Szor have said they hope Israelis will watch “NAZA” – the soldiers in the film spoke in Hebrew out of a desire to reach fellow Israelis, Mr. Abraham told Israel’s Kan public TV – a moral reckoning by Israeli society about the war in Gaza still seems out of reach while it’s still ongoing. How or when the film might be screened here in Israel remains unclear.Most Israelis “are trying as much as they can to be blind to – we can call it simply – war crimes that the IDF did commit in Gaza,” says Tomer Persico, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. At the same time, he says, the adulation for “NAZA” abroad is viewed warily by many Israelis. They see it as part of a broader campaign “not only to delegitimize the state of Israel, but to demonize the state of Israel; to make it into an evil entity that needs to be dismantled.”“There will always be people who will never want to hear about anything bad that the IDF has done,” Dr. Persico says. “But I think most Israelis will, eventually, come to a point in which they want to reflect and reckon with what has happened.” Deepen your worldviewwith Monitor Highlights.Politics with respectGet political stories with respectful analysis.There's a world of new ideas in everyBooks newsletter.There's more to life, enrich yours withCulture & Learning weekly.Follow humanity's discoveries withScience & Nature stories in your inbox.Gain a spiritual perspectivefrom the stories in your inbox.Want to understand the deeper impact of critical events? Learn the Monitor's insight.Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. In the midst of the controversy, Mr. Abraham, the film’s co-director, told Israeli TV that the threat to revoke his Israeli citizenship was terrifying.“The land [of Israel] is my home. It’s where I want to live; it’s a place that’s so important to me,” Mr. Abraham told Channel 13. “Of course I’m afraid that I won’t be able to return.” ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LoginReal news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908 to lift the standard of journalism and uplift humanity. We aim to “speak the truth in love.” Our goal is not to tell you what to think, but to give you the essential knowledge and understanding to come to your own intelligent conclusions. Join us in this mission by subscribing.