A documentary titled NAZA premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on Thursday, featuring interviews with 24 Israeli military and intelligence officials who participated in surveillance and targeting operations during the conflict in Gaza. The film was directed by Oscar-winning Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by the Guardian, with executive production by Jonathan Glazer. The interviewees spoke on conditions of anonymity, with their identities digitally altered to protect them from potential repercussions.
According to the documentary, Israeli military operations employed artificial intelligence-based systems to identify potential Hamas targets, who were then targeted in nighttime strikes with the understanding that civilians, including family members, would also be killed. The film details accounts of phone hacking, surveillance of conversations between targets and their families moments before strikes, and the destruction of residential neighborhoods where military estimates indicated significant civilian populations remained. The documentary also documents systematic burning of civilian homes and attacks on civilian gathering points.
The directors stated their aim was to examine institutional systems and policies rather than individual war crimes, focusing on orders, accepted practices, and the structures enabling mass civilian casualties. Several interviewees held positions within intelligence units reporting directly to the prime minister’s office. The film received approximately 25 minutes of standing ovation following its screening, described as a record for major international film festivals. The Venice Film Festival’s artistic director characterized the work as groundbreaking and politically significant.
The documentary builds on investigative reporting by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian published between 2023 and 2025. It was filmed and produced under security protocols due to risks to confidential sources. Abraham and Szor previously co-directed No Other Land, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2025, and they drew parallels between both films’ examinations of military systems affecting Palestinian populations in different contexts.
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