Naza: Movie Review

Director: Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor

It's hard to know where exactly to start with Naza, a documentary so urgent in its themes but yet so morally depressing.

This Guardian-produced documentary follows a series of interviews with 24 Israeli military and intelligence officers about their part in the war on Gaza, how they were recruited, their use of AI, surveillance, and targeted strikes in Gaza that have claimed thousands of innocent civilian lives.

Shot on rooftops around Tel Aviv and with ordinary people nearby in tower blocks going on with their lives, the shrouded figures espouse their detached views on being part of the intelligence sector, their missions and the joy they deride from them and the way whole families or tower blocks were selected to simply take out one possible operative.

It's beyond chilling to hear human lives being discussed as if they were in video games, targets to be picked off as part of a military campaign that shows no end in sight and which becomes a political football between leaders, the populace stuck in the middle.

Naza refers to collateral damage in the war, essentially human lives, and to hear the officers say their strikes involved 100 or 200 Naza at a time with a sense of emotionless detachment and devoid of any kind of sentiment is likely to leave you disturbed. Whether it's the story of asa boy injured in an attack and who's seen by the officers before they order another strike to take him out, the candid nature with which these officers speak is both eye-opening and deeply troubling.

With sombre edges and little fanfare, both Szor and Abraham stack their case against the officers, even offering them chances to regret their actions, but Naza shows the IDF for what they are and it's horrifying to behold. There's no sensationalism here, and with historical clips showing parts of the past, the frankness with which the doco tells its story becomes its own weapon.

Whether Naza goes on to become one of the most compelling pieces of evidence in the war between Israel and Palestine remains yet to be seen, but as a piece of film that exposes humanity for the inhumanity it harbours, it's a sickening piece of film that should compel many to change - but depressingly, likely will not.