VENICE — A powerful and chilling new documentary poised to ignite global controversy had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week, featuring explosive testimony from Israeli military and intelligence personnel regarding the use of AI-driven systems in the bombardment of Gaza.
Titled “NAZA,” the film was directed by Oscar-winning filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. It offers a rare, unflinching look at the operational mechanics of the war, drawing its name from an Israeli intelligence euphemism used to quantify the number of expected civilian deaths in a planned airstrike.
The filmmakers revealed to AFP on Thursday that they secured on-camera testimony from 24 Israeli military and intelligence figures. Due to the sensitive nature of their disclosures and concerns for their safety, the participants’ identities have been protected.
“We are letting the soldiers and the officers speak about what they did,” Abraham said. “The goal was very simple: we wanted to hear in as much detail as possible, how the systems of killing in Gaza looked like, how they operated.”
The documentary details how Israel’s comprehensive surveillance of Gaza’s telecommunications network was integrated with artificial intelligence to identify and target individuals for assassination. According to the directors, this intersection of mass surveillance and algorithmic warfare provided a stream of justifications for the staggering scale of civilian casualties reported in the enclave since October 2023.
The release of “NAZA” comes at a time of deep polarization and international scrutiny. According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, nearly 73,500 Palestinians have been killed and over 174,000 wounded since the conflict began in response to the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, which resulted in 1,219 deaths. While Israel maintains that it does not deliberately target civilians and accuses Hamas of embedding itself within the civilian population, the filmmakers argue that their evidence points to systematic violations of international law.
The production team behind the film carries significant weight, featuring Jim Wilson and Jonathan Glazer—the minds behind the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest”—alongside reporting contributions from Britain’s The Guardian. Abraham and Szor, who previously won an Oscar for their film “No Other Land,” expressed hope that the documentary would exert pressure on Western governments to re-evaluate their diplomatic and military support for Israel.
“Those of us inside Israel and Palestine trying to fight for change need it,” Abraham stated. “You are weakening the people inside who are supporting human rights and a political solution by refusing to act.”
The film’s debut follows a series of recent cinematic works at the Venice Film Festival that have focused on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, signaling a broader shift in the cultural landscape. As foreign journalists remain largely barred from reporting independently within the territory, these documentaries have become critical vessels for information. With the Committee to Protect Journalists reporting the deaths of more than 200 journalists in Gaza since the war’s inception, the testimony provided in “NAZA” offers an unprecedented, albeit harrowing, account from within the Israeli military apparatus itself.
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