The Israeli documentary Naza attracted considerable international media and political attention after winning the Venice Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize, despite not yet having reached the wider public. Following its screening at the festival, the film received a 25-minute standing ovation, an unusual occurrence at such events. The film runs for 80 minutes. Its Hebrew title, Naza, means “collateral damage” that is, the number of civilians expected to be killed or injured when a particular military strike is carried out. The documentary examines the system used to select targets, including the reliance on artificial intelligence during bombing operations in Gaza, and explains the mechanism by which the number of civilians expected to be killed or injured as a result of a strike is calculated in advance. The film draws on a three-year investigation and the testimonies of 24 people from within the Israeli military establishment, including soldiers and officers whose identities were concealed in the documentary.

A similar documentary Tantura, released four years before Naza, did not generate the same level of media and political attention, despite the significance of the subject it addressed and the elements of overlap between the two films.

Tantura was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2022 and focused on the massacre that befell the village of Tantura, all traces of which subsequently disappeared after the Alexandroni Brigade took control of it in May 1948.

Tantura was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2022 and focused on the massacre that befell the village of Tantura, all traces of which subsequently disappeared after the Alexandroni Brigade took control of it in May 1948.

The film drew its account from the thesis of University of Haifa researcher Teddy Katz who revisited the material on which his research was based. Katz conducted 140 hours of interviews with 135 Palestinian and Israeli witnesses, although he was subsequently attacked and his academic credibility challenged. Reports that the Israeli Ministry of Defence had concealed historical documents from the archives relating to the Nakba and the role of military operations in emptying Palestinian villages, some of which had already become available, helped spur the making of Tantura and a return to the documentation underlying Katz’s thesis. Following the film’s release, Haaretz published an investigation and called for a search for mass graves. The following year, Forensic Architecture drew on testimonies, documents, historical aerial photographs and other evidence to reconstruct the village digitally and identify sites believed likely to contain mass graves in the territories of 1948.

READ: Israel: Far-right activists protest outside parents’ home of Israeli film Naza director

Naza provoked a fierce reaction both internationally and within Israel following its screening, in contrast to Tantura, reflecting the change we are witnessing today in the aftermath of 7 October. Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar called for the citizenship of the film’s directors,........

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