Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to pass a law to revoke the citizenship of anyone who defames Israel’s soldiers, his latest threat against the Israeli directors of “NAZA”, a documentary about soldiers’ killing of Gaza civilians.

“NAZA” is a British documentary film written and directed by Israeli Jews Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. It follows the ongoing Gaza genocide committed by Israeli forces.

The film won a major prize at the Venice Film Festival

NAZA is a military acronym derived from the Hebrew term nezek agavi,[4] and used by the Israeli Defense Forces to indicate the number of civilians expected to be killed in an airstrike as collateral damage.

Directed by Israeli journalists ‌Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, NAZA alleges that mass civilian deaths were routinely built into Israeli targeting decisions in Gaza, something Netanyahu and the military reject.

The film takes its title from an Israeli military ​term for expected “collateral casualties” and is built around anonymous interviews with intelligence officers and ​soldiers.

The film uses casualty figures based on reporting by Israeli activist outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call, alongside reporting from British newspaper The Guardian, published between 2023 and 2025.

The film was shot in Tel Aviv during the ongoing Gaza War, and reveals the Israeli government officials role in the mass killing of Palestinian civilians during the conflict.

The subjects in the film detail the surveillance systems and remote bombing involved in the Israeli military’s operation, which they say uses artificial intelligence to identify potential Hamas targets and bomb their homes and apartments often knowing that families are inside.

“We just told these officers and soldiers, please describe to us what you did,” Abraham said in a news conference. “Of course there were other questions that arose but the principal question was a question of detail — sketch it for us, we want to know how it worked. And sometimes just asking the question, you get answers.”

“NAZA” was shot in secret on rooftops in Tel Aviv across three years and its subjects’ identities are obscured, with digital alterations of their voices and appearances.

“NAZA” builds on reporting between 2023 and 2025 published by the Israeli-Palestinian +972 Magazine, the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call and The Guardian. Szor spoke about the purpose of making a film with information that has already been reported and published.

“We felt that there is still some sort of importance to take those testimonies and put it in a film,” Szor said. “It’s different to hear, actually, the people who designed and operated those systems talk about it in front of a camera, and sketch it, show it.”

The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on 10 September 2026, where it was in competition for the Golden Lion award. It is the only documentary selected to the festival’s main competition, and was only added after 24 August, following consideration of safety concerns about its screening.

Despite international prestige and recognition, “NAZA” has drawn a backlash in Israel, with the military examining potential legal action against those involved in it. But it has also played into the charged political atmosphere ahead of Israel’s October 27 election, which public opinion polls show Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition could lose.

Netanyahu accused some of his election rivals of failing to take a tough stand against the documentary, saying this made them unfit for office. And he pledged to advance two bills that he said aimed at addressing the “immense damage” done to Israeli soldiers.

“The first, to revoke the citizenship of anyone who defames (Israeli) soldiers, and the second to hit them in their pockets and increase the statutory damages for defamation they can be sued for by 20 times,” Netanyahu said in a social media video.

“We will hit them both in their pockets and in their citizenship, as their place is not with us.”

Netanyahu cited three incidents in proposing the bills: “the recent film NAZA which portrayed (Israeli) officers and soldiers as war criminals”; 2025 remarks by left-wing ex-general turned politician Yair Golan that “a sane country does not kill children as a hobby”; and a military legal officer’s 2024 leak of a video showing soldiers abusing a Gaza detainee.

In 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a law that permits stripping citizenship from Israelis who carry out actions that constitute a breach of trust against the state. Any new legislation would likely face similar court challenges.

The NAZA filmmakers say they believe it is important that Israelis watch the documentary and grapple with the narrative it presents.

This article can be read here too.

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