Venice documentary NAZA features 24 Israeli whistleblowers detailing Gaza targeting

Premiere on the Venice Lido

Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor presented their 80-minute documentary "NAZA" at the 83rd Venice Film Festival on 10 September 2026. The film builds on the directors' previous work on "No Other Land" and is produced in collaboration with The Guardian and JW Films producer James Wilson, with Jonathan Glazer serving as executive producer. Its title refers to "Nezek Agavi", an internal Israeli military Hebrew term designating the calculated number of collateral civilian deaths permitted before carrying out an airstrike. The documentary centres on testimonies from 24 Israeli intelligence officers, soldiers, and state personnel who agreed to speak under conditions of anonymity. Filmed at night on Tel Aviv rooftops with digitally altered voices and obscured faces, the whistleblowers outline the systematic targeting protocols deployed during the military campaign in Gaza.

We show in our film a targeting system that is, by design, targeting people in civilian spaces, in their family homes.

Automated targeting and civilian tolls

The interviewees describe an intelligence apparatus increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence systems to process surveillance feeds from thousands of hacked telecommunication devices in Gaza. Officers state that pre-mapped residential locations are struck when automated algorithms detect targets returning home, including instances where voice patterns such as a child saying "daddy's home" trigger an immediate strike. According to testimonies in the film, the military command authorised operations knowingly anticipating up to 500 civilian casualties to eliminate a single individual. The documentary records conflicting internal estimates regarding target verification accuracy, citing error margins between 15% and at least 25%. Gaza health authorities place the overall Palestinian death toll above 73,000 since the war began following the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed in Israel.

Operations in restricted zones and aid centres

The testimonies also address military actions within designated no-go perimeters and areas surrounding humanitarian supply hubs. Whistleblowers allege that the exact boundaries of these restricted zones were withheld from local inhabitants, leading to strikes on civilians attempting to access provisions. United Nations data cited in the reporting indicates that more than 400 Palestinians were killed while seeking humanitarian aid during the conflict. While the Israel Defense Forces previously stated that rules of engagement were revised following incidents at distribution points, the film asserts that collateral civilian losses were built directly into operational planning. Several soldiers recount maintaining a detached, bureaucratic posture during target executions, likening remote drone strikes to video games before later reflecting on their involvement.

Whistleblower reflections and broader reception

The 24 sources offer varying motivations for providing their testimonies, ranging from personal distress and guilt to technical explanations of military efficiency. Several interviewees draw explicit comparisons between the institutional dehumanisation witnessed in Gaza and historical lessons from the Holocaust, referencing filmmaker Claude Lanzmann. Abraham noted that the production team deliberately sought Hebrew-language accounts from Israeli personnel to confront domestic perceptions of the war directly. The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the specific allegations broadcast at the festival.

In a situation where so often you see how the memory of the Holocaust is used as a means to justify Israel's actions in Gaza, it's very important to draw a more universal conclusion.