NAZA: It’s not just about Israel and Gaza. It’s about the evil lurking in us all

Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye, 22 October 2026

This new, award-winning film silences us not because of the monstrosity of what Israel did but because it serves as irrefutable proof of our own monstrosity

have just seen NAZA, a documentary in which 24 Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers are filmed explaining how, over the past three years, they went about systematically wiping Gaza off the map.

They did so while nearly every western capital either chose to keep silent or actively assisted in the slaughter.

The filmed interviews take place at night, on the roof of a building in central Tel Aviv. The participants’ faces are masked by darkness, while, in the background, unidentifiable human figures can be seen going about their business in lighted apartments and offices: watching television, hanging the washing, seated at a desk.

Unlike the Venice Film Festival, where the film received a record 25-minute standing ovation, the sold-out screening I attended greeted NAZA with stunned silence.

The credits rolled. The lights went up. We traipsed to the exit. No one said a word.

That seemed a much more fitting response than the one in Venice. Ever since, I have been pondering what exactly our stunned silence meant.

Was it shock at the horrors inflicted on Gaza?

Not really. Barely any of the destruction and mass-killing was shown. We have seen far, far more of the genocide live-streamed on our phones.

Was it the fact that none of the interviewees appeared to regard the official figure of nearly 75,000 dead in Gaza and 175,000 maimed a Hamas-inspired fiction, as the Israeli government continues to claim, with the western media following suit?

In fact, the strong impression conveyed by these military insiders is that the true death toll is likely to be far higher.

Killing by algorithm

Was it the astonishing lack of self-awareness and reflection among most of the interviewees, who spoke drily – mostly indifferently – about the technical aspects of Israel’s innovative AI systems, which drove target selection to destroy homes and kill Palestinians on an unprecedented, industrial scale?

Selected from more than 100 Israeli military personnel who spoke to the film-makers off camera, the chosen 24 included some who had helped engineer what they called a “factory” for murdering Palestinians.

Others operated this production line, killing by algorithm, as though, in their words, they were playing a “video game“.

According to the interviewed soldiers, for every person suspected of being in Hamas, however junior their status, Israel authorised the killing of between 20 and more than 100 NAZA – the Hebrew acronym for Palestinian bystanders, including women and children.

When Hamas carried out its one-day attack on Israel in October 2023, the Israeli military claimed the group had around 30,000 fighters.

In addition, Israel – and its AI machinery – connected a far larger portion of the population to Hamas, if only because individuals worked for the Gaza government’s political, bureaucratic and administrative arms, from school teachers to doctors and nurses.

The film’s interviewer, Yuval Abraham, put to one interviewee a simple observation about the maths.

According to the logic of Israel’s NAZA doctrine – permitting potentially dozens of civilian deaths for every Hamas-linked target – almost the entire 2 million inhabitants of Gaza were viewed as acceptable “collateral damage”.

The intelligence official mulled this point over for some time, as though it had never occurred to him, before agreeing.

Israel’s human shields

Was the stunned silence our distaste at Israel’s decision to launch strikes on Hamas suspects at the very moment when the largest possible number of civilians would be killed alongside them?

Israel called one of its main AI programmes “Where’s daddy?” because, by tracking the location of phones and listening into calls, the system was able to flag when suspects were most likely to be at home, spending the night away from the fighting, with their families.

One interviewee provided an example of a 12-year-old girl who phoned to tell her mother that daddy was home and asked when she would return to the house. The words “daddy” and “return” were enough to trigger an alert by the AI system, setting up a military strike…………………………………………..https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/naza-its-not-just-about-israel-and-gaza-its-about-evil-hiding-us-all