Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor pose with the Special Jury Prize awarded to "Naza" at the closing ceremony of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival in Italy on September 12, 2026. (Credit: Yves Herman/Reuters)
The documentary “NAZA,” which features Israeli soldiers accusing their army of killing civilians in Gaza, will be made available online for free in November, one of its directors said Thursday.
The film received the special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival in mid-September, where it was met with a standing ovation. It has since sparked controversy in Israel, where directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor have been accused of “treason” by government ministers and faced calls to have their Israeli citizenship revoked.
The documentary will be available “for free on the Internet” from November to allow “the truth to emerge,” Abraham said in a post on X, without specifying a date. The release will come after Israel’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for Oct. 27. “I made this film to spark a public debate about the government’s actions in Gaza,” Abraham said. “Journalism is not treason. Criticism is not treason.”
The documentary is based on anonymous testimonies from 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers who allege that the Israeli military knowingly kills civilians during strikes targeting members of Hamas. “NAZA” refers to an Israeli military acronym for the estimated “collateral damage” associated with a strike, according to the documentary.
Following the film’s presentation in Venice, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar called for the filmmakers to be stripped of their citizenship and for an investigation into the film’s anonymous sources. The Israeli military has rejected the accusations made in the documentary, questioning the reliability of the anonymous interviewees and saying it makes significant efforts to protect civilians during strikes in Gaza.
Abraham said the documentary had “cracked the screen of indifference” in Israel despite a “high personal cost.” He said he and Szor would return to Israel to “continue fighting” despite threats of legal action. He did not say when they would return or where they were currently located.
The film was made against the backdrop of Israel’s war in Gaza, launched following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. At least 73,928 Palestinians have been killed and 175,030 wounded in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since a ceasefire was announced in Gaza on Oct. 11, 2025, according to the ministry, amid continued Israeli attacks. Israeli forces currently control almost 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, according to the figures cited in the original report.
