The Israeli Minister of Culture intends to revoke the nationality of the directors of the documentary 'Naza'
The film has won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and has caused a great journalistic impact
BarcelonaThe Israeli Minister of Culture, Miki Zohar, has announced that he wants to revoke the citizenship of the directors of the documentary Naza, which received the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival this Saturday, for showing Israel's calculated and massive strategy to destroy the Gaza Strip, with the help of AI. Zohar accuses them of "treason against the country".
Israeli journalists and filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor expose in the documentary the war crimes committed by their country's army during the Gaza War. The film collects the testimonies of 24 members of Israeli military intelligence. The film has high journalistic and cinematographic value. For its authors, "it shows the systemic dimension of the crimes committed by the State of Israel," said Abraham. Naza is the Hebrew military acronym for collateral damage from the army's attacks, which count for hundreds of human lives. The Israeli army has denied that AI is the one making the final decisions for the bombings and army attacks, as some soldiers in the film say.
The precedent
The filmmakers were already the co-authors of No other land, together with Palestinians Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, which triumphed at the 2024 Berlinale and later took home the Oscar for Best Documentary. There, they showed, through the figure of the young activist Basel Adra, the story of the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta, in the southern West Bank, which is fighting against the demolition of homes and against Israel's plans to turn it into a military training zone. After the award, a group of settlers assaulted Hamdan Ballal in the town of Susya, in the southern West Bank, where the events described in the film take place. He was arrested and subsequently released.
Now, with Naza, which has caused a great impact in Venice and will have a long international run, the Israeli government is once again attacking the filmmakers. The filmmakers have stated that they want to screen the film in Israel. The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said that Abraham and Szor "are a shame and a disgrace to the entire people of Israel".
