NAZA, a documentary by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, produced by the Guardian with filmmaker Jonathan Glazer. features 24 intelligence soldiers—most of them from the Israeli military’s elite, high-tech Unit 8200—describing how they identified targets on screen for bomb and drone strikes in Gaza during the recent war against Hamas. NAZA is the army’s acronym for nezek agavi, or collateral damage.
The film includes no narration, just interviews conducted in darkness on rooftops in central Tel Aviv with the interviewees’ identities obscured. Paradoxically, people whose faces and voices are obscured come vividly alive on screen. The deep black of nighttime appears almost searing to the eye. With pen and napkin, the soldiers draw crude illustrations of the simulations of buildings and street blocks that they used to identify targets. Just off the roof glitter the high rises of the Tel Aviv skyline, a 40-minute drive and a cosmos away from the Gaza Strip.
Through the filmmakers’ lens, we peer into numerous apartments and even watch the 8pm news—a nightly Israeli ritual—along with the inhabitants. A key point of the film is that the Israeli media, especially television, largely covered the war via IDF press releases. (An exception was Haaretz newspaper, where I am an opinion contributor.) There was almost no in-depth reporting on civilian deaths, collateral damage or the humanitarian disaster. Nor did most Israeli outlets push for foreign journalists to be allowed into Gaza; Israel still blocks their entry.
The debate about NAZA currently raging inside Israel (where the film still hasn’t been shown) is mostly about numbers. Did those interviewed know, or accurately recite, the numbers of innocent civilians killed as Israel fought the war in Gaza? But the film isn’t really about the numbers. It’s about the system. One soldier recalls being told by an officer, after raising doubts, that you must trust the system or everything will fall apart. Precisely. It all centres on one sentiment expressed by some Israeli leaders at the beginning of the war: there are no innocents in Gaza.
The viewer has no way to verify the claims made in the film—and, it should be noted, the IDF has categorially rejected them, saying that the anonymous testimony cannot be independent checked. Still, the fact that 24 witnesses (men and women) have come forward with essentially the same story makes it hard to believe that much of what we hear is inaccurate. I’ve been told that additional, similar interviews have been gathered by a leading Israeli NGO.
Here are some quotes from those who were interviewed:
“Destruction was strategic—destroy everything as quickly as possible.”
“The building needs to disappear.”
“Whoever you decided to kill was considered a terrorist. They entered our zone.”
“My role is entirely technical. I’m not supposed to express any moral opinion.”
“Forget the word ‘armed’, it’s not relevant.”
“It’s like a video game because everything is done remotely.”
“I’m disappointed that I am part of that system, that I didn’t oppose it when I was in it.”
As those interviewed point out repeatedly, Unit 8200 draws on Israel’s best and the brightest, many of them from Tel Aviv’s elite. Several attend democracy protests and oppose Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. But a 59-year occupation has rendered the Palestinian people faceless to most Israelis. While all war is lethal, one fought without a diplomatic horizon stretches beyond the bounds of conscience and the laws of warfare. Israel is a society rightly traumatised by the horrors inflicted by Hamas on 7th October 2023, but it is in denial about the need to come to an accommodation with the Palestinian people.
The philosopher Michael Walzer told Haaretz newspaper earlier this year: “In an asymmetric war the well-being of the civilian population is the responsibility of the high-tech army… whoever causes destruction must care for the helpless and innocent victims on the other side. And Israel did not do that. Israel intended that there would be no easing of suffering until there was a ‘total victory’ – a victory that was not possible and that no one, including the IDF, truly believed in.”
Two threads in the film distract from its central argument. The filmmakers intersperse archive footage of the founding of Tel Aviv; attempting, perhaps, to cast its very creation as illegitimate, or maybe trying to show how Palestinians were rendered invisible in the creation of Israel. In truth, it’s hard to know what their thesis is here, but it takes away from the main thrust of the film. They also invoke the Holocaust in a somewhat heavy-handed way, to drive home the notion of individual complicity. And, without doubt, the use of the NAZA acronym—with its echo of “Nazi”—carries its own insinuation.
Documentary films are made to foster conversation. This is a conversation that must happen in Israel. The producers announced that, after a theatrical release in 56 territories, the film will be stream for free from November on the Guardian website. There are venues in Israel waiting to show it.
Netanyahu, however, has likened the film to “launching missiles” against Israel and has backed his culture minister Miki Zohar’s call to strip the filmmakers of their citizenship; Zohar has also threatened to cut funding to any Israeli cinema that shows it. Public anger has spilled into the streets and denunciations—with protesters even gathering outside Szor’s family home—though almost none of those denouncing the film have seen it. By the time NAZA is freely available online, the Israeli elections on 27th October will have come and gone—but everything unresolved about Gaza and its people will remain.
