"You understand that your goal is to destroy."
asserted
goal → understand → ?
Shrouded in darkness on balconies in Tel Aviv, this is how Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers describe their work.
asserted
officers → shroud → work
They are speaking to Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham under the expectation of complete anonymity for fear of retribution from the system they were once — or still are — embedded in.
asserted
they → speak → system
NAZA is the latest project from Abraham and Rachel Szor, one half of the filmmaking team behind the Academy Award-winning 2024 documentary No Other Land, which showed the destruction of a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank.
asserted
which → win → Bank
NAZA premiered this year at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize and received a 25-minute standing ovation.
asserted
it → premier → ovation
In the film, 24 interviewees detail — sometimes with shame, sometimes with pride — the intricate surveillance and technological systems used by the Israeli military in Gaza.
asserted
interviewees → detail → Gaza
The war has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians since the 2023 October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
asserted
war → kill → Israel
One interviewee in the film said: "After October seventh everyone kept saying, 'There are no innocent people in Gaza.'"
asserted
everyone → say → Gaza
"This notion spread throughout the army and suddenly we are toppling entire buildings.
asserted
we → spread → buildings
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has rejected such claims, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to strip Abraham and Sozr of their citizenship and pursue defamation charges.
uncertain
Netanyahu → reject → charges
The filmmakers have been unable to return to Israel and are residing in the UK.
asserted
filmmakers → return → UK
It took Abraham and Sozr three years to gather the NAZA interviews and research from more than 100 confidential sources.
asserted
It → take → sources
"We've made sure that every major claim in the film has multiple sources — in some cases more than a dozen sources who are backing up that claim," Abraham told the ABC.
uncertain
Abraham → make → ABC
"So, we feel very confident about the truth of what the soldiers are saying in the film.
asserted
soldiers → feel → film
NAZA is an Israeli military acronym for collateral damage, or, according to one interviewee, the number of civilians likely to die from a strike.
uncertain
NAZA → accord → strike
"We say 15 NAZA.
asserted
We → say → NAZA
We don't say 15 people killed and certainly not that 15 children and women will be killed.
asserted
children → say → ?
We say 15 NAZA."
asserted
We → say → NAZA
Another interviewee asserts that Israeli forces work off "NAZA maps" that allow them to see potential civilian bombing victims.
asserted
them → assert → victims
"Twenty NAZA became the benchmark.
asserted
NAZA → become → ?
We'd take down lower ranks in Hamas without a second thought.
asserted
We → take → thought
They were official orders," he said.
asserted
he → say → ?
Another interviewee said he was part of a strike that involved the approval to kill 500 civilians "for one human target".
asserted
that → say → target
"The targets are like a video game because everything is done remotely," he said.
asserted
he → do → game
Many consider themselves "cogs" in a machine, stuttering or falling silent when Abraham pushes them to recognise the numbers as human lives.
asserted
Abraham → consider → lives
"One soldier in the film says, 'No matter what we do, they deserve it,'" he says.
asserted
he → say → it
"There's something about when so many people in society normalise this violence.
asserted
people → be → violence
Soldiers talk about it in the film, that [the dehumanisation] becomes like the water you swim in."
asserted
you → talk → water
NAZA interviewees explain how the IDF uses an AI system called Lavender to process huge amounts of surveillance data to identify bombing targets.
asserted
IDF → explain → targets
Every building in Gaza is numbered and every storey in every building is accounted for.
asserted
storey → number → building
Targets for large-scale attacks are identified via the Lavender algorithm.
asserted
Targets → identify → algorithm
One interviewee said Lavender had earmarked up to 70,000 phone numbers.
"Every such phone that we located, we could bomb," he said.
uncertain
he → say → that
But he said Lavender "made a lot of mistakes".
"
asserted
Lavender → say → mistakes
It once marked an 80-year-old woman.
asserted
It → mark → woman
They bombed her house with her entire family in it.
asserted
They → bomb → it
This bothered the intelligence community on a professional level," he said.
asserted
he → bother → level
"The intelligence officer said he was willing to risk being wrong 15 per cent of the time.
asserted
he → say → time
A section of NAZA titled Where's Daddy? details the military "consensus" to use surveillance data to target private homes at night.
"
asserted
Daddy → title → night
'Where's Daddy' is a mechanism of alerting us when an operative comes home.
asserted
operative → alert → us
We'd spy on the family to know when the father comes home," one interviewee said.
asserted
interviewee → spy → family
…and 47 more, not listed.
The Aporia
