{"id":912537,"date":"2026-10-01T18:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T18:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912537\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T18:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T18:34:09","slug":"idf-calls-gaza-documentary-naza-distorted-misleading-disingenuous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912537\/","title":{"rendered":"IDF Calls Gaza Documentary NAZA ‘Distorted, Misleading, Disingenuous’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Israeli Defense Force on Thursday came out with an official, and lengthy, response to NAZA<\/a>, the Israeli-army whistleblower documentary about the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe doc, from Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (No Other Land), is a series of anonymous interviews with two dozen IDF veterans of the Gaza war. They lay out, in extraordinary detail what they claim <\/a>is Israel<\/a>\u2018s deliberate and systematic targeting of civilians in the war, (the NAZA<\/a> of the title, an acronym of a Hebrew expression meaning \u201ccollateral damage\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe film NAZA presents a distorted, misleading and disingenuous picture of the IDF\u2019s target planning and striking process,\u201d the IDF said in its statement (available in full here<\/a>), claiming the documentary\u2019s narrative \u201cis based on substantial factual errors stemming from a misrepresented and manipulative depiction of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn particular, the military statement reads, the film omits \u201ccontext essential to understanding the war in Gaza,\u201d distorts reality \u201d through manipulative editing of interviews\u201d and \u201cfalsely and baselessly attributing malicious intentions to the IDF that the purported \u2018evidence\u2019 in the film does not substantiate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe IDF admitted it has not yet seen NAZA, noting that \u201cthe filmmakers did not submit their allegations to the IDF for examination and response before publication, and did not provide a copy of the film after its screening, although the IDF requested it.\u201d Their lengthy statement and rebuttal is based on \u201ca detailed account by a representative who attended a public screening,\u201d of the film \u201cas well as other public accounts and the filmmakers\u2019 own public statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe IDF statement rebuts or contextualizes several specific claims made in the film and argues the IDF takes \u201cconcrete steps [to] mitigate civilian harm\u201d which the filmmakers omit to mention. The interviewees, the IDF says, are \u201caddressing matters beyond their knowledge and competence\u201d drawing broad conclusions of the Israeli military\u2019s targeting process in Gaza based on \u201climited\u201d intelligence. While acknowledging civilian deaths, the IDF refutes claims that any killing of non-combatants was deliberate or a matter of military policy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIDF directives prohibit targeting civilians,\u201d the statement reads. In response to one interviewee, who in NAZA details the shooting of Palestinians trying to reach Gaza aid distribution sites, the IDF said \u201cin response to several tragic incidents involving civilian deaths in or around distribution centers\u201d operational debriefs were conducted, \u201clessons were learned and implemented, and additional instructions were issued.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Israeli military also rejects \u201ccategorically\u201d the claims, made by several NAZA interviewees in response to questions from Abraham, that IDF\u2019s actions in Gaza constitute a \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe allegation of \u2018genocide\u2019 is outrageous and unfounded, and the State of Israel has categorically rejected it,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cThe filmmakers\u2019 choice to ask people who are not experts on the matter and do not know the internationally accepted definition of the term for their personal views on it, is manipulative, misleading and irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBritish newspaper The Guardian, which produced NAZA, dismissed the IDF\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe IDF\u2019s attempt to portray the 24 participants in NAZA as junior-ranking officers involved only in the early stages of the targeting process is false,\u201d reads a statement sent to The Hollywood Reporter from a Guardian News & Media spokesperson. \u201cThey include officers and soldiers who were involved in multiple stages of the targeting process in Gaza, including intelligence, operations and the final authorisation process.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe process of assessing the credibility of the testimonies was rigorous. It included leaked classified documents, detailed verification of specific strikes and corroboration via a wider pool of confidential journalistic sources who did not appear on camera in the film.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOver the past three years we have together interviewed more than 100 sources familiar with IDF systems used in the war in Gaza, including senior-ranking commanders directly involved in the authorization of strikes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Guardian stands fully behind the film, which builds on three years of detailed reporting by the Guardian and our partners. Several highly respected news organisations have subsequently confirmed the IDF\u2019s use of AI-driven systems in the Gaza offensive and the loosening of safeguards to protect civilians, including The New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNAZA premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Prize<\/a>. The film had its U.S. debut at the New York Film Festival, where it played to an enthusiastic crowd<\/a> inside Alice Tully Hall, while drawing a small but intense pro-Israel protest outside the theater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Israeli Defense Force on Thursday came out with an official, and lengthy, response to NAZA, the Israeli-army…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,13958,134,3389,6897,72415,344,435555],"class_list":["post-912537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-documentaries","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-israel","tag-israel-gaza-conflict","tag-movies","tag-naza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}