Israeli culture minister calls for filmmakers’ citizenship to be revoked over Gaza documentary

Israel’s culture minister, Miki Zohar, has called for the Oscar-winning Israeli co-directors of *Naza*, a documentary that accuses the Israeli army of mass civilian killings in Gaza, to be stripped of their citizenship over “treason against the state.” The filmmakers are Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

The film is named for the Hebrew military acronym for collateral damage. It features 24 unidentified Israeli military and intelligence officers who describe the AI-powered targeting systems the Israeli army used to bombard Gaza during the war that followed the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023. According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, figures the United Nations considers reliable, more than 73,000 Palestinians, including more than 20,000 children, have been killed in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign since then. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in the Hamas attack.

Abraham and Szor say their 80-minute documentary “details the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza” during the war, according to its official synopsis. One interviewee says there was approval for an attack that would kill 500 people for “one human target.” The IDF said this allegation was “completely false.”

In a post on X, Zohar said he had asked the authorities “to investigate how the materials were obtained, who is behind them, and whether in the process of obtaining or publishing them, actions were taken that amount to aiding the enemy during wartime.” In a letter to Israel’s Interior Ministry, he wrote: “The claims presented in the film are false and distorted, and I categorically reject the attempt to portray IDF soldiers and the State of Israel as perpetrators of intentional crimes.” He cited the country’s Citizenship Law, which he said “allows for the revocation of citizenship due to a ‘breach of allegiance to the State of Israel’.” The measure has rarely been applied. There has been no immediate reaction from Abraham and Szor.

*Naza* premiered last Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a 25-minute standing ovation and a special jury prize. It has not yet been made available to the wider public. The film was produced by the UK’s *Guardian* newspaper. Speaking at the festival, Abraham said the reporting had been “rigorous” and that efforts to discredit it were “attempts to not face reality.” He told the Associated Press: “It’s a war that has principally been killing civilians. And I think our film is showing that this is not some mistake. It’s not an accident. It’s something very, very systemic.”

The IDF first said it “categorically rejects [the] allegations.” It later issued a statement through its spokesperson, Brig-Gen Effie Defrin, saying: “The film ‘Naza’ has not yet been released in full. However, based on what can be seen in promotional material, it presents a series of serious and false allegations regarding the IDF and its personnel.” Defrin added that to allow “a substantive, professional, and fact-based discussion,” he invited the filmmakers to let IDF representatives view the film in full so the army could address each allegation on its merits, a call for fair testing of the claims (Proverbs 18:17).

Other Israeli politicians have criticised the documentary. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett called it a “horrific blood libel against our sons and daughters,” and former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman described the directors as “haters of Israel.” More than 700 members of the film industry signed a petition supporting the filmmakers, saying they were being subjected to a “campaign of incitement and vilification.” Speaking to Israel’s N12 channel, actor and screenwriter Shlomi Elkabetz said: “These are questions [raised in the film] that must be examined, not silenced.”

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