Much of the documentary NAZA is filmed on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, where Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham conducted one-on-one interviews with Israeli soldiers and members of the intelligence services.
The guardian
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The guardian
For most of the shocking and damning new documentary NAZAwe’re on a series of Tel Aviv rooftops, watching Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham conduct one-on-one interviews with soldiers and members of the Israeli intelligence service.
The rooftop footage was filmed at night, primarily by Abraham’s co-director Rachel Szor, and the subjects of their interviews – 24 of them in total – are all shrouded in darkness. We’re told their appearances and voices have been digitally altered to protect their anonymity. In great detail, they discuss their role in launching the airstrikes that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since the attacks carried out by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 250 hostages were taken.
Unsurprisingly, NAZA has already sparked considerable outrage – much of it, it should be noted, from people who haven’t seen it and may never see it. Abraham and Szor, both Israeli filmmakers, were denounced as traitors in Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself threatened to revoke their citizenship. The anonymization of sources has been one of the most controversial issues; Supporters of Israel said it discredited the soldiers’ testimony, while supporters of Palestine criticized the film for protecting confessed war criminals.
Without the promise of anonymity, of course, NAZA because a film would not exist. But the reports he presents would be exist. Much of it has already been published in outlets such as +972 Magazine, an Israeli-Palestinian publication; Local Call, a Hebrew-language media outlet; And The Guardian, who co-produced the film. Abraham wrote many of these investigative articles himself; he also credited the many Palestinian journalists who brought these revelations to light.
The testimony is captivating. Some of the interviewees recount how motivated they were to help the Israeli army wipe out Hamas after October 7. Some express guilt and regret for their involvement. Others see themselves as cogs in a necessary war machine. But for the most part, filmmakers are less interested in the questions of why than in the mechanics of how. They want us to understand how these remote surveillance and mass killing systems work, and to grasp the horrific scale of civilian deaths.
NAZA is an acronym for Nezek Agavi, Hebrew for “collateral damage.” It refers to the estimated number of civilian casualties considered acceptable by the Israeli military. “Twenty NAZA” would mean that up to 20 civilian deaths were approved in the elimination of a single target. For a high-value target, a figure of 500 NAZA was approved – the population of a small Israeli town, Abraham notes.
The logistics of the stalks and murders are organized calmly and methodically. Because the army can hack the phone of any Palestinian in Gaza, its surveillance power is almost total. We learn that the army has a practice of bombing the homes of suspected Hamas members at night, while their wives and children are with them. We also hear about the widespread use of AI systems to gather intelligence, much of it false, on potential targets.
One of the scariest passages describes a tracking technology called “Where’s Dad?” ”, which uses children’s words to confirm whether their targeted fathers are at home. A soldier describes using this method on a 12-year-old girl: “You hack her phone and then you kill her.” At one point, Abraham asks a subject if Israel is committing genocide. Without hesitation, he answers: “Yes. Completely “. As the film shows, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7 – and the death toll continues to rise.
I looked NAZA twice now, both times in a state of horror and silent fury – and with immense admiration for the courage of Abraham and Szor to hold their government to account. My admiration extends to the unerring precision of their production. NAZA only lasts 77 minutes. He does not dwell on the atrocities he describes, mainly because there are so many of them to combat. There is archival material, including footage of the early days of Israeli intelligence and the construction of Tel Aviv in the 1920s.
But most of the images we see are of modern Tel Aviv, at night. Szor’s camera captures the twinkling lights of the city and often looks out of apartment windows, showing us Israeli citizens working out, eating, and watching the news. There is enormous power – and, I think, stealthy accusation – in these everyday images. It’s as if the filmmakers are presenting a mirror image of Gaza, turning our thoughts to the thousands of slain Palestinians who once were just going about their evenings. The most radical thing in NAZA doesn’t that expose the machinery of death? it is the film’s insistence on the value of Palestinian life.
