| THE LIE NAZA, the documentary by Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor that won the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival, argues that the IDF’s own collateral-damage estimates reveal a culture of mass killing in Gaza, and claims that “Israel has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza.” |
| THE TRUTH International law requires the IDF to estimate possible civilian harm before a strike, and “NAZA” is its name for that estimate: a safety check, not proof of mass killing. The film’s 73,000 figure is Hamas’s unverified count, which lumps fighters in with civilians, and the film never names its source. |
| BACKGROUND NAZA is a documentary by Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who previously won an Oscar for No Other Land. Its title is IDF shorthand for nezek agavi (collateral damage), the military’s estimate of expected civilian harm from a strike. The film is built on anonymous interviews with 24 Israeli military and intelligence personnel. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 10, 2026, won the Special Jury Prize, and opened in theaters worldwide in late September. IDF On October 1, 2026, after viewing the film, the IDF issued a written response calling it “distorted, misleading, and disingenuous.” IDF |
| TRUTH EXPLAINED The film turns a legal safeguard into an accusation. Every law-abiding military estimates civilian harm before a strike. That estimate decides whether a strike goes ahead, gets modified, or is cancelled, and the IDF says commanders cancelled strikes repeatedly. The film takes this estimate, which the law requires, and presents it as evidence that Israel set out to kill civilians. IDF The IDF has denied the film’s key claims. It says it “has never planned, approved or carried out a strike in Gaza in which 500 civilians, or anything close to that number, were expected to be killed.” According to the IDF, the civilian-harm figures in the film were upper limits on what a commander could approve, not targets. People, not AI, authorize strikes, and the film’s interviewees were mid-level intelligence staff with no role in those decisions. Jerusalem Post No one can verify the film’s claims. The interviewees speak anonymously and name no dates, places, or specific strikes, so viewers can’t check their accounts and the IDF has nothing to investigate. Jerusalem Post The 73,000 figure comes from Hamas. It is the running total published by the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. The ministry does not separate terrorists from civilians, and it does not record how each person died. In April 2024, it admitted it had “incomplete data” for 11,371 of the 33,091 names on its list. FDD Israel did not cause every death. In the first month of the war alone, the IDF reported that more than 1,000 rockets fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad fell short and landed inside Gaza. Hamas has also executed Gazans it accused of collaborating with Israel, and it has fought armed clans that oppose it. Because the ministry doesn’t record a cause of death, all of these deaths can end up in a total that the film attributes to Israel. IDF FDD John Spencer Hamas tells its people how to report deaths. In 2014, Hamas instructed its social media activists to describe every person killed as an “innocent civilian,” and not to post images of Hamas terrorists launching rockets from populated areas. MEMRI The film leaves out what Israel did to protect civilians. In 2024, before NAZA was made, urban-warfare expert John Spencer concluded that Israel took more steps to protect civilians than any military in history. Those steps included warning residents before strikes, calling off strikes, using smaller bombs, and opening evacuation routes. The film says little about October 7, about Hamas hiding among civilians, or about the strikes Israel cancelled. Newsweek IDF |
| QUOTES “To say every person that died in Gaza was killed by Israel is a vulgar lie.” – John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies, Modern War Institute at West Point”You’re talking about collateral damage? My husband and my son were murdered by Hamas. Where does this appear in your film?” – Sabine Taasa, whose husband and son were murdered on October 7, at a NAZA screening in Delft |
| TAKEAWAY The film turns NAZA on its head. International law requires armies to estimate civilian harm before a strike, and NAZA is the IDF’s name for that estimate. It is a safeguard, yet the film treats it as a confession. The film then blames Israel for every death in Hamas’s count, a count that never records how anyone died, while saying little about October 7, Hamas’s tunnels, or its use of human shields. That is not an investigation. It is a case against the side that works to protect civilians before it fires. Israel has responded. Read the IDF’s response, watch the rebuttal film NAZA: The Real Story for free at nazadocumentary.com/film, and decide for yourself. |
