Gaza Genocide · updated 2h ago · 3 min read
NAZA Documentary Premieres in Venice With Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor Testimonies on AI-Enabled Gaza Killings
Venice premiere features testimonies from 24 Israeli military/intelligence insiders alleging systematized killings in Gaza. Insiders describe AI-enabled Gaza killings, highlighting technologically assisted targeting.
Whether the film claims a state-wide system aimed at civilian spaces.
9 of 11 outlets skipped it: one officer says mission was to 'thwart peace'.
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Reuters
“We show in our film a targeting system that is, by design, targeting people in civilian spaces, in their family homes,”Read the original ↗
Al-Jazira Net
“The film conveyed accounts from eyewitnesses about destroying neighborhoods”
Translated from the original.
Read the original ↗Reuters foregrounds deliberate civilian-space targeting; Al Jazeera foregrounds destruction and remote-killing details.
NAZA at Venice
A documentary titled “NAZA,” directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, premiered at the Venice Film Festival and presents testimonies from 24 Israeli military or intelligence figures about what it describes as AI-enabled mass killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
““We are letting the soldiers and the officers speak about what they did,” Abraham told AFP.”
Abraham told AFP, “We are letting the soldiers and the officers speak about what they did,” and the film’s subjects describe combining AI technology with mass surveillance of Gaza, including monitoring the territory’s entire telecommunications network to identify people to kill.
The film’s title takes its name from a euphemism used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians expected to be killed in an airstrike, and Abraham said, “The mass surveillance is directly related to the mass killing.”
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry figures cited by AFP put the bombardment’s toll at about 73,500 Palestinians killed and 174,500 wounded since October 2023, after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The documentary also includes references to the Holocaust, and Abraham said, “I think what we should be doing is recognising similar patterns of dehumanisation,” while Israel says it does not deliberately target civilians and accuses Hamas of hiding among the population.
AI, phones, and targeting
Reuters reported that “NAZA” draws on anonymous interviews in which an officer says there was “mass killing on an industrial scale,” and Abraham told Reuters that the film shows “a targeting system that is, by design, targeting people in civilian spaces, in their family homes.”R
The documentary’s account, as described by Reuters, includes an AI-assisted system that identified targets using data gathered from thousands of hacked mobile phones, and it says a phrase like “daddy's home” picked up on a child's phone could trigger an airstrike.R
Reuters also said the film describes killing civilians in Israeli-designated no-go zones, with one officer saying, “They have to learn with blood.”R
In parallel, The Guardian described the film’s testimony as detailing secret methods including AI-based systems built to identify large numbers of potential low-ranking Hamas targets, who were then bombed in their homes at night with the knowledge that attacks would also kill their families.
The Guardian further said the film includes accounts of covertly listening into conversations with wives and children moments before they were killed, and it reported that several interviewees worked in a secret intelligence unit that reports directly to the office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Pressure, accountability, and impact
Abraham told AFP that the film aims to encourage Western nations to withdraw their support for Israel and apply pressure through sanctions, and he said, “You are weakening the people inside who are supporting human rights and a political solution by refusing to act.”
““You are weakening the people inside who are supporting human rights and a political solution by refusing to act.””
In Reuters’ account, Abraham also said he doubted Israel would bring anyone to justice for civilian deaths without outside pressure, adding, “It depends on holding people to account and on the political will of the United States and the EU.”R
The Al-Jazira Net report cited Gaza’s health ministry saying the cumulative toll since the start of the genocide in October 2023 reached about 73,670 martyrs and 174,682 injured, and it said victims remain under rubble and in the streets with rescue and civil defense crews unable to reach them.A
Al-Jazira Net also said Israel destroyed about 90% of the sector’s civilian infrastructure, and it reported that the United Nations estimated the cost of reconstruction at about 70 billion dollars.A
The film’s Venice reception and stakes were also framed in terms of visibility and accountability, with Reuters reporting that the documentary received a 25-minute standing ovation at its premiere and that the Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.R