Le Monde (English), on Gaza, 12 October 2026

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Netanyahu seeks probe into Israeli whistleblowers featured in Gaza war documentary

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Directors Yuval Abraham, left, and Rachel Szor pose for photographers after accepting the special jury prize for the film 'Naza' during the closing ceremony of the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on September 12, 2026. SCOTT A GARFITT / AP PHOTO/SCOTT A GARFITT Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday, October 11, for an investigation into the anonymous sources featured in the award-winning Gaza war documentary NAZA .

The film is based on testimony from 24 unnamed Israeli military whistleblowers who accuse the army of killing numerous civilians in Gaza with the use of AI-powered targeting systems. "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this evening asked the chief of staff of the Israeli army, the head of the Shin Bet (domestic intelligence), and the state attorney to open a thorough investigation targeting the participants in the film NAZA and to prosecute them," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

NAZA takes its name from the Israeli military term for civilian casualties expected in airstrikes, an abbreviated form of the Hebrew phrase for "collateral damage". Awarded a special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival, the film received a historic 25-minute standing ovation, but it has triggered a political storm in Israel. "This film tells a false, misleading and biased story that defames the State of Israel and the army around the world," Netanyahu said, according to the statement.

He has previously declared his intention to back legislation to strip citizenship from people who "defame" soldiers. The Israeli army, for its part, has "categorically" rejected the accusations contained in the film, expressing doubts about the reliability of the anonymous contributors. Launched in retaliation for Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks, Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 people, according to the territory's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

Read more Subscribers only 'Factory of targets' and 'collateral damage': Israeli soldiers describe Gaza methods Le Monde with AFP

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About this analysis

Le Monde reports Netanyahu's call to investigate and prosecute the anonymous soldiers in the NAZA documentary. It attributes the film's accusations and the army's denial to their sources, and it names Israel as the party whose campaign has killed more than 74,000 people. No finding against this report stands.

What it gets right

  • “Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 people”

    It names Israel as the party doing the killing and uses the word killed, with no passive construction hiding the actor.

  • “whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations”

    It does not leave the Hamas-authority label hanging over the toll. It tells the reader the UN considers the figures reliable.

  • “NAZA takes its name from the Israeli military term for civilian casualties expected in airstrikes”

    It explains plainly that the title is the army's own term for expected civilian deaths, which gives the reader the substance of the film's accusation.

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