Directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, NAZA features interviews with 24 current and former members of Israel's military and intelligence services.
Speaking anonymously, they describe surveillance and artificial intelligence systems used to identify targets and calculate expected civilian casualties.
The title refers to a military acronym for collateral damage, meaning civilian casualties anticipated during an attack on a military target.
One interviewee alleges that the military was prepared to accept the deaths of up to 500 civilians to kill a single Hamas member.
Abraham and Szor previously worked on No Other Land, the documentary about Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank that won an Oscar in 2025.
Much of the investigative work behind NAZA had already appeared in reports published by The Guardian, which also produced the film.
Speaking at the documentary's world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, Szor said the filmmakers wanted audiences to hear the accounts directly from those involved in designing and operating the military systems.
Abraham said he and Szor had felt a responsibility, as Israelis, to expose the mechanisms behind the killing of Palestinian civilians.
The film won the Special Jury Prize in Venice but provoked an angry response from the Israeli government.
Culture Minister Miki Zohar described it as "despicable" and accused its directors of hatred toward their own country. He also threatened to seek the revocation of their Israeli citizenship, accusing them of disloyalty and collaboration with the enemy.
The Israel Defense Forces rejected the documentary's allegations, questioning the credibility of anonymous witnesses and accusing the filmmakers of factual distortions.
The military said its targeting procedures were designed to minimize civilian casualties and explicitly denied ever authorizing an attack expected to kill 500 civilians.
The filmmakers have defended their investigation, saying their sources and accounts were independently verified. More than 1,000 Israeli filmmakers and 1,500 filmmakers from other countries signed a petition supporting Abraham and Szor.
The Polish Directors' Guild also defended the pair.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, the organization's honorary chair, filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, said artists had a right, and sometimes a duty, to ask difficult questions and expose what governments would rather conceal.
"They should not be intimidated or punished for their creative expression," she said, declaring the guild's support for the filmmakers and artistic freedom.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP