Naza

In an exposing film about the systems behind the large-scale civilian deaths in Gaza, Israeli soldiers hold secret conversations at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv. Gradually the film reveals how the military and intelligence agencies determine who becomes a target, which technologies and procedures are employed, and how many civilian casualties an attack may entail. Dozens—sometimes even hundreds—of Palestinian civilians can be deemed an acceptable price for eliminating a single target. In doing so, the film poses a painful question: how can the killing of innocent civilians become so normalized within a military apparatus that it is no longer viewed as a moral or legal issue?

The title of the film refers to Nezek Agavi, the Israeli military term for “collateral damage,” the expected number of civilian casualties associated with an air strike. The term thus symbolizes a dehumanization deeply embedded in the system: civilian deaths are not a tragic side effect, but a foreseen and accepted component of military operations.

Directors’ statement: 
“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. While filming over the past three years, we found ourselves asking the very questions that were asked by our grandparents’ generation and throughout the 20th century: how does one group of people allow the total dehumanisation of another? What do the inner workings of such a system look like?”

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are two of the co-directors who received an Oscar for No Other Land (2024).