Just as hot-button Gaza documentary “NAZA” — which recently won a special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival — gains international visibility and media attention, a counter project has surfaced online titled “NAZA: The Real Story.” The original 80-minute doc, which was shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv and explores the killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, features revelatory interviews with 24 Israeli military intelligence officers and soldiers. It is currently playing in cinemas in Europe and the U.S. before it will be made visible to stream for free on The Guardian website in late November. It is now being countered by the rapidly made 49-minute rebuttal “NAZA: The Real Story,” shot in a style that mimics the original.
According to information on its website, the film has been made by Lt. Roi Danino, who is a political candidate for the right-wing Israel First party led by Sharren Haskel in Israel’s upcoming Oct. 27 elections; Ariel Averbuch, a reserve major in the Israel Defense Forces, who is a patent attorney and ultra-nationalist influencer; and content editor Hagai Gutman. The documentary was reposted on X by the Israeli Embassy to the U.S. on Saturday, which wrote “a new Israeli documentary is setting the record straight” alongside a link to its website.
According to the “NAZA: The Real Story” website, the rebuttal doc, similarly to the original, describes the war in Gaza as “told through the testimonies of IDF officers who took part.” “Through firsthand accounts, this documentary examines combat in civilian areas, the challenges of identifying threats, and the decisions made on the battlefield,” says the blurb on the rebuttal piece’s home page. And that the IDF ran its operations under strict rules for opening fire because of it. Those are the film’s claims, made by the people who were there,” according to the website.
At publishing time, the “NAZA: The Real Story” website asserts that more than 20 million viewers have already seen the doc that was released online this weekend. Last week, the Israeli Defense Forces slammed “NAZA” in a statement, calling it “manipulative,” “misleading” and “based on substantial factual errors.” “With the original ‘NAZA’ film gaining heavy distribution and visibility across Europe and the United States, the creators of this rebuttal are utilizing digital influencers and grassroots international networks to push their footage directly to global policymakers and journalists,” wrote the right-wing newspaper Jerusalem Post.
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