- By Al Mayadeen English
- Source: Al Mayadeen Israeli Affairs Department
- 15 Sep 2026 13:00
9 Min Read
Built on testimonies from Israeli military personnel, NAZA has triggered a political and security uproar over how Gaza’s war was conducted.
Listen
An Israeli documentary has triggered an unusually fierce political, media, and cultural backlash inside “Israel”, despite not relying on footage of Gaza’s destruction or images of thousands of victims to make its case, Al Mayadeen‘s Israeli Affairs Department revealed.
Titled NAZA, or Collateral Damage, the film by Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor has quickly moved beyond the cinema world to become a “national security” controversy, a legal matter, a diplomatic challenge, and part of a wider internal struggle over how “Israel” portrays its war on Gaza.
The film’s impact has been such that the Israeli occupation military convened an emergency meeting attended by senior intelligence, air force, and operations commanders, as well as occupation military prosecutors. The Foreign Ministry also moved to address the fallout, while Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar called for the filmmakers’ citizenship to be revoked. A police complaint was subsequently filed to examine whether classified security information may have been disclosed during the film’s production.
The documentary, which premiered internationally on September 10, 2026, in the main competition of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, was the only documentary competing in the main section. It later received the festival’s Special Jury Prize. Its screening was followed by nearly 25 minutes of applause, making it one of the most notable moments of this year’s festival.
The controversy surrounding NAZA has been framed by some Israeli figures as part of an “eighth front”, a battlefield beyond direct military confrontation, encompassing media, public opinion, international legitimacy, and the image of “Israel” around the world, according to Al Mayadeen‘s department.
From the occupation military establishment to the screen
Rather than focusing primarily on images of destruction in Gaza, NAZA examines the mechanisms through which military decisions are made, including intelligence gathering, surveillance systems, target generation, and the assessment of what the Israeli military refers to as “collateral damage”, the number of civilians expected to be killed during an attack on a military target.
The film is based on interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers and officers whose identities were concealed, with their faces and voices altered for protection. According to its filmmakers, some of those interviewed served in intelligence positions connected to information gathering and target identification. The interviews were conducted on rooftops in Tel Aviv during the war in an effort to protect the participants’ identities.
The documentary also draws on previous investigations published by +972 Magazine and The Guardian.
Institutionalized process behind killings
According to the film and the testimonies presented in it, the issue extends beyond isolated incidents involving individual soldiers. Its creators examine an institutionalized process for generating, selecting, and hitting targets, including the use of computerized systems and artificial intelligence to produce large numbers of targets and the incorporation of anticipated civilian casualties into the decision-making process.
That is where the film’s central sensitivity lies. Rather than asking only who was killed, it examines how the decisions that led to those deaths were made, who knew about them, who approved them, and how many civilian deaths were anticipated before an attack was carried out.
Why did the film alarm ‘Israel’?
One of the most striking aspects of the controversy is that much of the Israeli backlash emerged before the military had even watched the full documentary.
On the day after its screening, the Israeli military said it had not received the complete film and had only seen promotional footage. Nevertheless, Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir convened an exceptional meeting attended by the deputy chief of staff, senior air force and intelligence commanders, Unit 8200, the head of the Operations Directorate, the military advocate general, and other officials.
The meeting ended with instructions to examine possible legal action against the film and those behind it, as well as whether classified material had been leaked during its production.
An attack on ‘Israel’?
Zamir said the film, based on what had been published about it, was not an attempt to uncover the truth but consisted of “blood libels, deliberate distortions of reality and dangerous false accusations.” He said it was an attack on “Israel”, rather than merely on the military, and ordered an intensified media campaign inside and outside the entity in coordination with the Foreign Ministry, military prosecution, and other government bodies.
Israeli occupation military spokesperson Avichay Adraee also said the full film had not yet been released, while arguing that “the claims” appearing in its trailer “were false”. He called on the filmmakers to provide the military with the complete version so that it could respond to each allegation individually.
The speed and scale of the response, however, raised a broader question: why would a documentary that the military said it had not fully watched warrant a meeting involving the highest levels of the General Staff?
The debate inside “Israel” offered its own answer: the controversy had already moved beyond cinema.
The ‘eighth front’
Former Mossad official Segev Asolin went further on Channel 14, describing the controversy as an “attack on consciousness.” He said the battle being waged against “Israel” internationally constituted an “eighth front”, arguing that while “Israel” has achieved gains on other military fronts, it is repeatedly “losing” on this one.
The description reflects a broader shift in how the war is being understood inside “Israel”. The battlefield is no longer seen as limited to physical territory and military operations, but also extends to imagery, meaning, legitimacy, and collective memory.
The occupation military can destroy a target, but it cannot necessarily control how that destruction will ultimately be interpreted.
Netanyahu and Zohar escalate response
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply condemned the film, arguing that incitement becomes “unbearable” when it comes from within and linking the documentary to “international incitement against Israel.”
Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar went further, saying he would work to revoke the Israeli citizenship of Abraham and Szor on accusations of “treason”. His remarks triggered further debate over the limits of political punishment and democratic rights.
The confrontation subsequently moved into the legal sphere after a complaint was submitted to police to investigate whether the collection and publication of material for the film involved the disclosure of prohibited security information.
A film that became a threat before it was seen
One of the most revealing contradictions in the controversy is that some of the documentary’s most vocal critics had not watched it in full. Israeli journalists themselves acknowledged that they had seen only promotional excerpts, yet the political debate had already escalated to accusations of treason, incitement, and “national security threats.”
This suggests that the concern may extend beyond the film’s actual content to its ability to reach audiences before being filtered through the official narrative.
The documentary has already reached an international audience through Venice, where it received a major award, and is expected to appear at additional festivals before reaching wider audiences. The more forcefully the Israeli authorities respond, the greater the international attention surrounding the film is likely to become.
How can one film be more damaging than thousands of images?
The distinction lies in what the film attempts to document.
Images from Gaza show the consequences of the war. NAZA seeks to examine the mechanisms behind them. Statistics establish that civilians were killed; the testimonies presented in the film ask who knew, how decisions were made, what casualties were anticipated, and how civilian lives became numerical calculations within a targeting system.
From the perspective of the battle over public consciousness, this represents a significant shift in the source of the narrative.
The account is no longer coming solely from Gaza, human rights organizations, or foreign media outlets that “Israel” usually dismisses through accusations of bias or antisemitism. Instead, the documentary features Israelis speaking in Hebrew about institutions in which they served, while its Israeli filmmakers argue that their purpose is to force Israeli society to confront realities that are difficult to ignore.
That may ultimately be where NAZA derives much of its power. The film is not simply attempting to influence international perceptions of the Gaza genocide; it is seeking to penetrate Israeli consciousness from within.
Because internal testimony is hard to dismiss
An image can be countered with another image, and a statistic can be challenged with another statistic. An internal testimony is more difficult to dismiss because it can become part of the historical record and potentially serve as material for future research, documentation and accountability.
NAZA has therefore moved from being a film to becoming a political controversy, from a controversy into a battle over the narrative, and from that battle into what some Israeli voices themselves have called an “eighth front”.
On that front, the power of military force is measured not only by what it can destroy, but also by who can determine the meaning that remains after the war ends.
Peace and Justice Post 
Leave a comment