The film-makers behind NAZA, the award-winning documentary on Israel’s systemic mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza, defended their findings at the film’s North American premiere in New York on Saturday, amid protests in Israel and escalating threats from Israeli officials to strip them of their citizenship. The critically acclaimed film, directed by Oscar-winning film-makers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by the Guardian, features the testimony of 24 anonymized Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers involved in the surveillance and remote killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, who describe the AI-powered systems used to select their targets. The project takes its name from an acronym used euphemistically by Israeli intelligence to indicate how many civilians it expects to die in an airstrike, which are often conducted at night in private homes, killing many family members, including children, at once.
It held its world premiere earlier this month at the Venice film festival, where it received a 25-minute standing ovation – a festival record – and went on to win the special jury prize. The film has been met with fierce derision from Israeli officials as well as threats to the film-makers, amid a tense election season largely focused on Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians to date and has been declared a genocide by numerous international agencies, including the United Nations. A couple dozen protesters gathered outside the film’s premiere at the Lincoln Center on Saturday afternoon, brandishing Israeli flags and signs calling for viewers to “learn the facts” of the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians.
At least one truck with LED screens accusing NAZA of being “propaganda dressed up as a documentary” circled the theater. NAZA’s New York City premiere came just a day after the Israeli prime minister offered an aggressive defense of Israel’s use of deadly force in Gaza just across Central Park to the UN general assembly. As hundreds of protesters gathered outside and dozens of diplomats inside walked out in solidarity with Palestinians, Netanyahu called Israel’s war in Gaza the “opposite of genocide” and denounced Israel’s critics.
Netanyahu had previously said he would seek new laws to strip citizenship from people who “smear” Israeli soldiers in response to NAZA. On Friday, Netanyahu reiterated his plan to advance legislation revoking the citizenship of Abraham and Szor, two of the four film-makers behind No Other Land, an unstinting look at the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which won the Oscar for best documentary in 2025. In an interview with the conservative Israeli outlet Makor Rishon, he likened NAZA to “launching dozens of ballistic missiles” at Israel.
Abraham addressed the missile comment directly in the post-screening Q&A, referring to such a characterization as “the criminalization of journalism and of this kind of work”. He also defended the film’s use of anonymous sources as necessary to expose systems of mass killing hidden by the Israeli state. The IDF’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, said the military would “not allow IDF soldiers to be made targets through lies and blood libels” and would use “every tool at our disposal” against the film.
Rightwing activists have gone even further, calling for violence against the pair. Earlier this month, dozens of agitators surrounded Szor’s parents’ home in central Israel, with one protester calling for the “death penalty for traitors”. More than 1,500 Israeli film professionals, 43 Israeli human rights organizations and the directors of major international festivals have defended Abraham and Szor, as have numerous international press freedom organizations.
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