NAZA Premieres in Venice Featuring Testimony From Israeli Military Personnel — ABC News Australia

In Venice, Italy, the documentary film NAZA by Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor premiered. In the film, 24 anonymous participants, presented as Israeli military personnel and intelligence workers, speak about surveillance systems and the identification of targets for strikes in the Gaza Strip. The film received the Venice Film Festival’s special jury prize, ABC News Australia reports.

According to Abraham, collecting interviews and conducting research took three years, and the filmmakers used information from more than 100 confidential sources. He said that every key claim in the film is corroborated by several sources, and some by more than a dozen.

Testimony on algorithms and strikes

One interviewee explains that NAZA is a military acronym which, according to his claim, was used to denote the expected number of civilian casualties from a strike. Another participant in the film said that the deaths of up to 20 civilians could be approved for attacks on lower-ranking Hamas members.

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Participants in the film also speak about the Lavender artificial intelligence system, which, they say, processed large volumes of surveillance data to identify targets. One of them claims that the system flagged up to 70,000 phone numbers, but made mistakes. The film’s section titled Where’s Daddy? is devoted to participants’ claims about tracking operatives’ returns to private homes at night.

Reaction of the Israeli authorities

The Israel Defense Forces rejected the claims presented in the film. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the 24 interviewees in the film to be held accountable, describing their version of events as false, misleading, and biased.

According to Abraham, Netanyahu also threatened to strip him and Szor of their citizenship and seek liability for defamation. The directors are in the United Kingdom because they cannot return to Israel. After NAZA’s premiere, the Israeli government promoted the film Naza: The Real Story, which recreates the format of rooftop interviews and claims that Israel has “the most moral army in the world.”