NAZA review – Israeli intelligence officers cast chilling light on civilian deaths

Venice film festival: Under the cover of night, anonymous personnel discuss AI, error rates and problematic intelligence units in a documentary produced by the Guardian

Here is a disquieting documentary about what Israel’s military chiefs in Gaza reputedly call “Naza”, meaning civilian collateral damage – itself a queasy euphemism. The calculated “Naza” number is the amount of projected civilian deaths from each military strike, and perhaps it will come to have the same connotations as the US military term “body count” during Vietnam. The directors are Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the film-makers behind No Other Land, which was about attacks by the Israel Defense Forces on Palestinian West Bank villages. NAZA is executive produced by Jonathan Glazer and James Wilson and appears under the production auspices of the Guardian, in which some of the stories have already appeared.

There are flaws: interviews were conducted on the condition of anonymity, but if no-one can be persuaded to put their name and face to their words (and of course it is terribly dangerous) then the impact of this as testimony is lessened. But even so, the film is casting a chilling light on what is happening now in Gaza.