Review: Troubling documentary 'NAZA' details Israel's AI-assisted airstrikes in Gaza

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Set us as preferred Using interviews filmed on rooftops at night in Tel Aviv, the documentary “NAZA” uncovers Israel’s brutal methodology of warfare in Gaza since the Hamas-led Oct.7, 2023, massacre that took 250 hostages and killed at least 1,200 people.

The testimony offered by these insiders is under the cloak of darkness, but the light it shines on the mass killing of Palestinian civilians is so harsh it burns the conscience.(The title refers to the Israel Defense Forces’ use of an acronym for the Hebrew term for collateral damage: nezek agavi.)Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, half of the quartet (with Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal) behind the Oscar-winning “No Other Land,” secured one-on-one interviews with 24 Israeli intelligence personnel and soldiers, digitally altering their faces and voices while their silhouettes are framed by the lit cityscape.

Sitting across from interviewer Abraham, they recount their participation in a military campaign that has killed over 73,000 in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and is ongoing.Used as an estimation of casualties — just put a number in front, “20 NAZA”— it suggests a battle calculation that has permitted the detachment of moral consquences.One participant makes his need for anonymity clear: “Israel will put me in jail.” At the same time, there has been clamor for the exposure of these sources so they can be prosecuted for war crimes.

The uproar over “NAZA” has also led the filmmakers to be called traitors in their country.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to revoke their citizenship.It all speaks to the power of a well-timed movie, since much of the reporting in “NAZA” has already been published by the Guardian, a co-producer of the documentary, and corroborated by other news outlets.

After its thea...