Israeli minister threatens to strip Israeli film-makers of citizenship over Gaza documentary NAZA
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The row over NAZA, the Oscar-winning directors' documentary on Israel's mass killing of Gaza civilians, has escalated, with Israel's military chief now saying legal measures against the film-makers are being examined. Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said the film was "based on blood libels, deliberate distortions of reality and grave, false accusations" against soldiers and commanders, adding to culture minister Miki Zohar's call to strip directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor of their citizenship for "treason".
Further senior figures have piled in, with national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir telling the pair to "go away" and predicting Hamas would "welcome them with open arms", while former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman branded them "haters of Israel" and ex-prime minister Naftali Bennett called the film "a horrific blood libel". Abraham hit back, telling the Guardian the risks he and Szor take reflect Israel's "Jewish-Israeli supremacy", contrasting their situation with Palestinians facing "US-funded bulldozers and weapons" rather than a mob. The film, built on testimony from 24 military and intelligence whistleblowers, won a special jury prize at Venice after a record 25-minute ovation; citizenship revocation remains legally possible but rarely used, requiring sign-off from the interior and justice ministers and the courts.
- Israeli military chief says legal action against NAZA film-makers being explored
- Ben-Gvir, Lieberman, Bennett join condemnation of the Gaza documentary
- Director Abraham defends film, citing Israeli "supremacy" versus Palestinian risk
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Israel's mass killing of Gaza civilians has been documented in NAZA, a film by Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor built on testimony from 24 military and intelligence whistleblowers. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won a special jury prize and received an unusually long standing ovation, before going on to Oscar recognition. Abraham previously co-directed No Other Land, another Israeli-Palestinian documentary that drew similar political controversy.
The film's claims have provoked a strong backlash from senior figures in the Israeli government and military. Culture minister Miki Zohar has called for the directors to be stripped of their citizenship on grounds of treason, military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir has described the film as based on false accusations against soldiers, and other politicians, including national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and former officials Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett, have condemned the film-makers in strong terms.
Citizenship revocation is a rarely used and legally complex process in Israel, requiring approval from the interior and justice ministers as well as the courts. The dispute touches on broader and long-running debates about the Gaza war, freedom of expression, and how Israeli society should respond to critical accounts of its own military's conduct.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of the government's stance argue that soldiers who risked their lives fighting a war triggered by the 7 October attacks deserve protection from what they see as one-sided, uncorroborated accusations that could endanger them with prosecution abroad or vigilante reprisal at home. They contend that a documentary built largely on anonymous testimony, released to international acclaim while Israel is still at war, risks being weaponised in a global propaganda contest, lending credibility to accusations of genocide that they believe are false and deeply damaging to Israel's standing and to the safety of its citizens and soldiers serving overseas. For them, citizenship is bound up with a duty of loyalty in wartime, and public figures using extreme language such as "blood libel" or "treason" reflects how existential they consider the threat posed by the film's narrative to be, even if few expect the citizenship-stripping threat to be carried out.
The case against
Defenders of the film-makers argue that a documentary drawing on the testimony of 24 military and intelligence whistleblowers is precisely the kind of accountability journalism a democracy needs, however uncomfortable, and that awarding it international recognition reflects its evidentiary seriousness rather than any anti-Israel agenda. They see threats to strip citizenship over a work of journalism as a dangerous escalation that conflates criticism of military conduct with disloyalty, chilling dissent and eroding the free press and free expression that Israel prides itself on as a democracy. For them, the disproportionate ministerial pile-on, rather than reasoned rebuttal of the film's specific claims, itself signals an attempt to intimidate journalists and whistleblowers into silence, and they view legal protection for such scrutiny as essential precisely because it concerns the actions of those who wield state power.
Full account
Israel's culture minister, Miki Zohar, has said he will move to strip the Israeli citizenship of Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the co-directors of NAZA, a new documentary examining the Israeli military's use of mass-casualty targeting systems in Gaza, accusing the pair of "treason" and "betraying the state". The film, produced with the Guardian, takes its title from an intelligence-service acronym reportedly used to denote the anticipated number of civilian deaths judged acceptable in a given strike. It draws on interviews with 24 current and former Israeli military and intelligence personnel, one of whom alleges that killing up to 500 civilians was authorised in pursuit of a single Hamas operative.
NAZA had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a lengthy standing ovation reported to be a record for the event and went on to win the Special Jury Prize. Zohar reacted on social media, describing the film as "vile" and its makers as driven by "self-loathing", willing to damage their own country to win praise from what he called antisemites abroad. He said that, as culture minister, he intended to act immediately to have their citizenship revoked. Other senior Israeli figures joined the condemnation: national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told the directors they were a disgrace who would find a welcome from Hamas, while former prime minister Naftali Bennett called the film a "blood libel" and former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman branded the directors "haters of Israel". The military's chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, went further, alleging the documentary rested on distortions and false claims against troops and commanders, and said army lawyers were considering legal options in response.
Abraham and Szor previously won the 2025 Academy Award for best documentary for No Other Land, an account of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, and have faced hostility over their work before: Abraham's family home was reportedly targeted by a rightwing mob, a co-director of the earlier film was arrested after being attacked by settlers, and a consultant linked to that project was shot dead earlier this year. In their own statement on NAZA, the directors said they felt an obligation as Israelis to scrutinise the machinery behind the killing of Palestinian civilians, describing the process of making the film as forcing them to confront questions about how societies allow the dehumanisation of another people. They noted that much of what surfaced during filming had already been reported by the Guardian alongside the Israeli-Palestinian outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, but said the documentary allowed them to explore silences that journalism alone could not capture.
Although Israeli law does permit revoking citizenship from those found to have acted disloyally, including through espionage, terrorism or treason, the process is rarely invoked and requires sign-off from the interior and justice ministries as well as judicial approval, meaning any move against the directors would likely face a lengthy legal process. NAZA does not yet have a distribution deal in Israel, though its makers have said they hope to see it released there as well as in the United States and Germany.
Where outlets differ
The Guardian, as the film's producer, offers far more detail on the wider political backlash — quoting Ben-Gvir, Bennett, Lieberman and army chief Eyal Zamir, and explaining the Israeli legal mechanism for revoking citizenship, including that it is rarely used and needs multiple layers of sign-off.
IndieWire (via The Hollywood Reporter) focuses more on the filmmakers' personal history and the risks they have faced, cataloguing the arrest of No Other Land co-director Hamdan Ballal, the killing of a film consultant, and quotes the directors' full statement on their motivations for making NAZA, material the Guardian source does not include.
The two sources render some of Zohar's quoted remarks slightly differently (e.g. 'for treason against the state' versus 'for betraying the state'), suggesting translation variance from the original Hebrew rather than a factual discrepancy.
Only the Guardian source specifies the film's Venice ovation length (25 minutes) and describes it as a festival record, and only it details the specific NAZA targeting claim (500 civilians for one Hamas member).
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