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Inside ‘NAZA,’ the Bombshell Exposé on IDF’s War in Gaza
Confirmed
In Short: The Venice Film Festival awarded the Special Jury Prize to NAZA, a documentary that exposes the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) deliberate targeting of civilian areas in Gaza, according to interviews with 24 Israeli military personnel.
The film NAZA, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, reveals the IDF's attitude toward civilian casualties in Gaza, with interviewees describing a culture that viewed Palestinians as expendable. Interviewees claim the number of 'NAZA' (collateral damage) considered acceptable was flexible, and that military intelligence chose to attack residential targets at night to maximize civilian deaths.
The Gaza Ministry of Health reports that the IDF has killed over 73,000 Palestinians and wounded over 173,000 since the start of Israel's military retaliation in October 2023. The documentary's release comes amid criticism of Israel's restrictions on international journalists entering Gaza, placing the burden of reporting on Palestinian journalists, many of whom have been killed.
What's confirmed
- The film NAZA, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, reveals the IDF's attitude toward civilian casualties in Gaza, with interviewees describing a culture that viewed Palestinians as expendable. Interviewees claim the number of 'NAZA' (collateral damage) considered acceptable was flexible, and that military intelligence chose to attack residential targets at night to maximize civilian deaths.
- The Gaza Ministry of Health reports that the IDF has killed over 73,000 Palestinians and wounded over 173,000 since the start of Israel's military retaliation in October 2023. The documentary's release comes amid criticism of Israel's restrictions on international journalists entering Gaza, placing the burden of reporting on Palestinian journalists, many of whom have been killed.
What's still developing
- RELATED: Venice Film Festival 2026: Read All Of Deadline’s Reviews Interviewees speak to an attitude they say was prevalent among IDF soldiers that allowed them to view Palestinian civilians as expendable: “We need to erase Gaza… They deserve it,” one source describes as a common refrain among soldiers.
- According to interviewees in the film, Israeli military intelligence officials made the deliberate choice to attack residential targets in Gaza at night, after concluding it was more likely they could hit a suspected Hamas target while he was at home with his family.
- The existence of the Lavender program, as it was called, was first.
- According to some of the Israeli military personnel interviewed in NAZA, Israeli snipers deliberately fired on hungry Palestinians trying to reach food distribution sites.
- The devastating documentary NAZA, an investigation into Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza, was shot at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv, in part to avoid potential Israeli eavesdropping, presumably, and to facilitate shielding the identities of participants.
- Those participants are 24 Israeli military intelligence officers and soldiers who reveal, in almost matter-of-fact tones, chilling details of a program that has caused catastrophic destruction of residential areas in Gaza, and massive loss of life among Palestinian civilians, including women and children.
- Abraham appears on camera, interviewing his subjects on the rooftop; they explain that “NAZA” is a Hebrew acronym used by the Israel Defense Forces to signify collateral damage (נזק אגבי, or Nezek Agavi, per an interview included in press notes), in other words, an acceptable loss of civilian life incurred while trying to kill suspected Hamas militants.
- Abraham and Szor, part of the director collective behind the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which documented the destruction of a village in the occupied West Bank by Israeli soldiers and settlers, shot NAZA clandestinely over three years, doing the interviews under the cover of night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv.