Israeli minister threatens to strip Israeli film-makers of citizenship over Gaza documentary NAZA

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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.

• www.theguardian.com
• consequence.net