Gaza Mass-Killing Documentary NAZA Set for 56-Country Release as Netanyahu Moves to Strip Directors' Citizenship

NAZA is a military acronym Israeli intelligence uses to estimate how many civilians are expected to die in a given airstrike. It is also the title of a new documentary that opens in cinemas across more than 50 countries this month before streaming free on the Guardian's website.

The film, from Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was produced by the Guardian. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month to a 25-minute standing ovation, a festival record, and won the special jury prize. It has since screened in Bologna and San Sebastián, with its North American premiere set for Saturday at the New York Film Festival ahead of a theatrical run beginning at the IFC Center in Manhattan, expanding to Los Angeles and other US cities on October 9. A partnership with MK2 Films will bring the film to 55 other territories, including the UK, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Turkey, and the Middle East. The Guardian says it is exploring ways to screen the film in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Shot at night on Tel Aviv rooftops, NAZA is built around interviews with 24 members of Israeli intelligence and military personnel, granted anonymity, describing the systems behind what the film characterizes as calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. It extends reporting first published by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call between 2023 and 2025. Jonathan Glazer, director of The Zone of Interest, executive produced the film; James Wilson of JW Films also produced it. Abraham and Szor previously won the 2024 best documentary Oscar for No Other Land alongside Palestinian co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal.

The response inside Israel has moved quickly from acclaim to state pressure. Last week Benjamin Netanyahu and a number of senior military and far-right political figures accused the directors of "treason against the state" and called for their citizenship to be revoked. Netanyahu said he would pursue legislation allowing citizenship to be stripped from people who "smear" Israeli soldiers or "defame" the state. Dozens of rightwing activists gathered outside Szor's parents' home; police and border police were deployed after one protester called for the "death penalty for traitors" and demanded the directors' family homes be demolished.

"We made this film out of a sense of obligation to use our position as Israelis to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible," Abraham and Szor said. "The threats from the Israeli government to revoke our citizenship and the death threats do not change that and will not stop the film."

Forty-three Israeli human rights organizations issued a joint statement last week urging authorities to halt what they called incitement against the filmmakers and to refrain from prosecuting them or their sources. More than 1,500 Israeli filmmakers signed a petition in solidarity, a statement echoed by international directors including Ken Loach, Joshua Oppenheimer, Laura Poitras, and Paul Laverty.

No distributor or cinema in Israel has yet confirmed a screening, though a number have reportedly been offered the film.