Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor directed the film NAZA, which was rapturously lauded and applauded by the attendees at the recent Venice film festival.  The directors want the world to believe that NAZA is a serious film about grave violations of the law of war allegedly perpetrated by the I.D.F., but they quite clearly have absolutely no understanding of that law.

Days after the film was released, Mr. Abraham was interviewed for a podcast; the interview is here.  In the interview, Mr. Abraham asserts (in English translation beginning at 4:21) the following:

The person says in the film that Hamas uses human shields, but that the practice of attacking people in their homes at night when they are with their families is not because they use the family as a shield, that is, they are not conducting military activity from inside the house, they just go back to sleep there.  And we do it [that is, the I.D.F. attacks Hamas operatives in their homes] because it’s easy for us right now [that is, when the Hamas operatives are at home].  And the important point here is that they kill everyone in the building along with them, entire families.  (I have added the bracketed material for clarity. D.E.W.)

The foregoing quote makes it obvious that Mr. Abraham believes that fighting both for and against Hamas is essentially a 9 to 5 job. A Hamas combatant gets up at home in the morning, has breakfast, grabs his machine-gun, goes out and kills some Israelis—either soldiers or civilians, it really doesn’t matter—and then, at the end of the workday at 5:00 PM, he punches out the time-clock and returns home for dinner with the wife and kids.

And Mr. Abraham apparently believes that, once the Hamas gunman has returned home and unstrapped his machine-gun, he’s immune from attack, because he’s “not conducting military activity from inside the house, [he] just go[es] back to sleep there.”  Therefore, any attempt by the I.D.F. to attack him at home apparently is a grave war crime.  Mr. Abraham believes that, after your enemies have stopped killing for the day and gone home, they cannot lawfully be killed until a new day rolls around and they’ve started killing your compatriots again.

Mr. Abraham is entirely, completely, totally and comprehensively mistaken; he understands nothing of the law of war.

Military combat is not limited to a 9 to 5 schedule, and the laws of war do not prohibit attacking a combatant when he is asleep or home with the family.  A combatant is never, under any circumstances, required to awaken a........

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