Israel’s bitter political divisions are particularly sharp before the country’s October elections. But the furious response to a new documentary about the military’s actions in the genocidal war on Gaza has revealed an issue that much of Israel’s political and media establishment appears united on. Few of the central allegations in NAZA, made by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, are new.
Reports that the Israeli military was relying on artificial intelligence systems to generate targets in Gaza, often killing the inhabitants of entire buildings to kill just one individual identified by the system, were reported in April 2024. Other accusations against Israel, such as committing genocide, deliberately causing a famine, and unlawfully killing children, have also not received much attention in Israel. In contrast, NAZA has unleashed a litany of abuse from across Israel, and brought the allegations to the centre of Israel’s political debate.
Culture Minister Miki Zohar reacted to the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival – where it received a 25-minute standing ovation – by calling for the directors to be stripped of their citizenship and to be investigated by the internal intelligence service for treason. Army chief Eyal Zamir has dismissed the film as being built on blood libel and ordered a legal probe to hunt down its military and intelligence sources. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also cited the film when advancing legislation to revoke citizenship from anyone deemed to be smearing the country’s soldiers, while in the coastal city of Ashdod, graffiti branding the directors “traitors” has appeared on the walls.
They’re talking about revoking their citizenship. They’re asking the Shin Bet to investigate them – for making a film, and it isn’t just the politicians. Journalists, who you might expect to show some kind of solidarity with them, are competing to attack them.
It’s scary.” In late 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported escalating censorship and harassment in Israel, with Israeli journalists telling the organisation that the media’s approach had become “part of the war effort” and, by extension, significantly shaped Israeli view of their war on Gaza. In October 2025, a study by the Israeli think tank Molad found that only 3 percent of Channel 12’s coverage of the first six months of the war mentioned Gaza’s humanitarian crisis. Of 206 war-related images and video clips broadcast by the network, Israel’s most-watched channel, only two showed Palestinian civilian casualties.
Nevertheless, before the film’s release, polls found that most Israelis believed the coverage they were receiving of the military’s conduct in Gaza was balanced. Palestinian deaths, in this telling, were framed less as the product of Israeli conduct than as collateral damage forced on Israel by its enemy’s tactics, she said. On Monday, former military chief and one of Netanyahu’s principal rivals Gadi Eisenkot denounced the film for “moral blindness, a detachment from reality, and harm to the State of Israel in a difficult hour”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
