NAZA: The Machinery of Civilian Death and the Crisis of Global Justice
When surveillance identifies the family, software nominates the target, and bureaucracy authorizes the strike, accountability must reach the institutions that make civilian destruction an operational routine. A critical dossier on the award-winning documentary, state retaliation, and the legal architecture that must restrain it.
Evidence and Scope — Strict Evidentiary Threshold
This article examines The Guardian investigation of 10 September 2026 and its account of NAZA; it is not a claim to have independently viewed the film or authenticated its underlying intelligence records. Operational accounts are attributed testimony. Legal conclusions distinguish investigative findings, allegations, and judicial determinations. Policy recommendations are the author's analysis.
Investigative whistleblower reporting ≠ State rebuttal ≠ Judicial determination. The analysis rejects unverified hyperbole and state-sanctioned technocratic impunity alike. Casualty totals cited from The Guardian (73,000 killed, 174,000 injured) are dated reported figures, not independently audited counts of unique individuals.1. A Rupture in the Machinery of Denial
The most disturbing possibility raised by NAZA is that mass civilian death can emerge from an institution functioning as designed. An operator follows a workflow; an analyst supplies a location; a superior approves an expected loss of life. Each task can appear administratively ordinary while their coordinated outcome is catastrophic.
According to The Guardian's investigation, the documentary premiered at Venice on 10 September 2026 and assembles testimony from 24 Israeli military and intelligence insiders. Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by The Guardian, co-produced by James Wilson and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer — collaborators on The Zone of Interest — interviews were filmed on Tel Aviv rooftops, with appearances and voices digitally altered to protect identities. These conditions matter: they expose both the possibilities and the evidentiary limitations of testimony given under threat.
Whistleblower testimony can pierce state deniability by describing conduct from inside the apparatus. Yet the credibility of Palestinian survivors must never depend on subsequent recognition by members of the institution accused of harming them. These accounts should be examined alongside Palestinian journalism, medical documentation, survivor testimony, and physical evidence. Insider disclosure adds a view of decision-making; it does not confer humanity on people whose humanity was already complete.
From Bangladesh, the essential question is whether international law can restrain powerful states through the same standards it invokes elsewhere. A legal order that recognizes victims but leaves the production of further victims untouched has confused acknowledgment with protection.
2. The Architecture of Denial vs. Insider Disclosure
Testimony in the film alleges "mass killing on an industrial scale" in Gaza, one officer said in a series of anonymous interviews, describing an AI-assisted system that identified targets using data gathered from thousands of hacked mobile phones. Israel rejects the premise, says it has gone to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and that Hamas uses Gaza's civilians as human shields — a claim Hamas denies.
The Guardian reports testimony describing AI-assisted identification of large numbers of suspected low-ranking Hamas operatives, followed by attacks on their homes at night with knowledge that relatives would also be killed. It also describes phone hacking and intercepted family conversations immediately before lethal strikes. These are reported operational accounts, not independently established findings about every attack.
Against this, the IDF's public defense is procedural and human-centric. On Friday — a day after the film's premiere and a day before it won the Special Jury Prize on 12 September — the IDF issued a statement saying it "categorically rejects" allegations made in the documentary and criticizing the use of anonymous testimonies. The IDF said decisions on selection and approval of strikes were made "by human personnel only... and not by artificial intelligence."
IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, in a Hebrew-language post on X and a video statement, said: "The film 'NAZA' has not yet been released in full, but from what can be seen in the trailer, it presents a series of serious and false claims regarding the IDF and its personnel. The claims presented in the trailer are untrue, and some are even presented in a distorted, falsified manner, disconnected from the reality on the ground." He added: "It is important to me to emphasize that the IDF is a values-based military that operates in accordance with international law and according to binding professional values and standards."
Defrin invited the filmmakers to allow IDF representatives to view the full film so that IDF could respond in a "substantive manner." So far, the military has only reacted to clips posted online and has not yet seen the full documentary — a fact that makes both sweeping dismissal and definitive adjudication premature. This is precisely why judicial thresholds matter.
Among the film's most cited allegations, featured in a promotional video, is that a strike was planned during the war against Hamas in which 500 civilian deaths had been anticipated. The IDF has denied that claim as "completely false," stating: "The IDF has never planned, approved, or carried out a strike in Gaza in which 500 civilians or anything near that number were anticipated to be killed. Nor was any credible claim raised throughout the war suggesting that an IDF strike had caused anything near that number of fatalities." The IDF said Abraham and Szor "couldn't possibly verify this claim, there is no real supporting evidence, and yet they published it anyway."
The military said Friday that "the excerpts cited include claims regarding national and military strategy that are clearly beyond the knowledge of junior-level soldiers," and that there are "references to situations in which IDF Intelligence Directorate soldiers, who were allegedly interviewed for the film, by definition would not have been involved."
Evidentiary precision requires separating these layers: (i) attributed whistleblower description of routine practice; (ii) state denial; (iii) what logs, authorization forms, and contemporaneous estimates would need to show for a court to make a finding.
3. The Banality of Euphemism — What "NAZA" Means
The Guardian describes the title as a military acronym referring euphemistically to civilians expected to die in an attack. Its report does not provide the acronym's full linguistic expansion, and none should be invented. In Israeli military vernacular, the term is widely understood as nezek agavi — collateral damage / non-combatant casualty value. The euphemism itself does analytical work.
An acronym can compress a family into an entry on an authorization form. That compression matters because administrative language shapes what an institution notices. Names, dependency, disability, and the impossibility of escape disappear; a number remains. Once approved, the number may be treated as evidence that a procedure was completed rather than a reason to reconsider the operation.
Estimating civilian harm is itself necessary for lawful decision-making. The abuse occurs when estimation becomes permission without substantive restraint, or when euphemism conceals conduct requiring investigation as a war crime. The question is whether the estimate constrained violence. If it merely accompanied a decision already made, the procedure may have documented knowledge while providing an appearance of care.
The reported estimate of residents remaining is especially important. An evacuation instruction cannot make the people unable or unwilling to leave disappear from the legal assessment. Destroying a neighborhood requires scrutiny of its actual military objectives and civilian presence; a geographic designation cannot perform that analysis. Similarly, burning homes raises questions about military necessity, property destruction, displacement, and whether return was deliberately made impossible.
Food distribution introduces another dimension: whether survival itself has been placed within a coercive system. In August 2025, the IPC confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate, with reasonable evidence, as of 15 August. That finding is geographically and temporally specific; it is not a claim that all Gaza remains under the same classification today. The associated UN agency statement described the famine as human-made. ICRC customary IHL Rules 1 (distinction), 14 (proportionality), and 15 (precautions in attack) require that even when a target is lawful, an attack is prohibited if expected incidental civilian harm is excessive in relation to concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. That assessment concerns circumstances of the attack, not a political declaration that an entire campaign is necessary. A preset civilian-death allowance cannot establish compliance by itself. Equally, knowledge that civilians may die does not automatically prove every attack unlawful: military advantage, expected harm, available information, and applicable criminal intent must be investigated.
The interception of intimate domestic conversations sharpens the issue of knowledge. If records show operators heard children or spouses immediately before impact, those records may help establish what was known when authorization was given. Such knowledge does not independently settle every legal question. It does make a generic explanation of unforeseen civilian presence harder to sustain.
The Guardian's 10 September 2026 report gives totals exceeding 73,000 Palestinians killed and 174,000 injured, describing their combined scale as more than one-tenth of Gaza's prewar population. These are dated reported figures, not independently audited totals. Their sum should not be presented as a verified count of unique individuals without examining overlap between injury and death records. No vocabulary can make these losses administrative rather than human. The destruction of a home also destroys shelter, continuity, care, and conditions of recovery. A system that counts immediate deaths while disregarding collapse of civilian life can conceal full consequences of its own decisions.
4. Command Responsibility & Retaliation: Zamir, Ofir, and Zohar
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Monday instructed the military's top legal officer, Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir, to "examine and advance possible legal actions regarding the film and those involved in it... due to the dissemination of false claims against IDF soldiers, and their possible implications for their personal security and the security of the state."
Zamir also instructed the military's top brass to examine "information security aspects and possible individuals involved in the leaking of classified materials that were used in producing the film." Earlier Monday, Defrin also stridently rejected allegations and said IDF was seeking to view documentary in its entirety.
In his statement after holding a meeting Monday with senior military officials, Zamir said: "According to the reports that have emerged so far, this is not a film criticizing the IDF and is not an attempt to ascertain the truth. It is based on blood libels, deliberate distortion of reality, and false and serious accusations against IDF soldiers and commanders. This is a film that adopts narratives of Israel's haters, defames our soldiers and commanders, and seeks to portray the IDF as deliberately acting unlawfully."
He continued: "This is a dangerous attempt to strip us of the legitimacy to defend ourselves against the worst of our enemies, and in doing so to pose a real danger to IDF soldiers and commanders. We will not allow IDF soldiers to be turned into targets through lies and blood libels. Faced with such an attempt, we must act resolutely, using all the tools at our disposal, legal, command, and public diplomacy."
Zamir on Monday ordered establishment of a "multi-organizational and multidisciplinary team" headed by the Planning Directorate, to "formulate courses of action and tools for addressing false claims against the IDF and its soldiers, in cooperation with experts from Israel and around the world."
Later Monday, issuing a missive to troops, Zamir also noted that he has "not watched the film, I do not know whom they interviewed in it or who or what is behind it. The claims and events were not presented to the IDF, and therefore it is difficult to respond to the matter seriously and professionally." The IDF chief said that the military "will continue to accept any substantive criticism and examine ourselves," but added that "false, manipulative and unfounded vilification is not legitimate criticism, even if it receives sanctimonious applause."
The investigation also reports that several interviewees served in a secret intelligence unit reporting directly to Benjamin Netanyahu's office. One described its mission as working to "thwart peace." That is a serious attributed statement. It should not be inflated into a verified written mandate, attributed to every intelligence unit, or treated as proof that the prime minister personally ordered each alleged killing. The reported executive connection's significance lies in investigative questions it opens: What was the unit's formal remit? Who set its priorities? What information reached the executive office? Were activities directed toward a lawful security purpose, or toward obstructing diplomatic alternatives and scrutiny? Answers require authenticated communications, budgets, tasking orders, organizational charts, and testimony tested against contemporaneous records.
Retaliation layers on top of this architecture. Culture Minister Miki Zohar has threatened to revoke the citizenship of filmmakers Abraham and Szor "for treason against the state," part of considerable backlash from a range of Israeli politicians. The film has received considerable backlash, but the threatened citizenship revocation is distinct: it instrumentalizes nationality as punishment for journalism.
Evaluated under international standards, three legal frames apply:
(a) Whistleblower and journalist protection: UN Special Rapporteur standards and customary protections for journalists require that disclosure of information in public interest, including classified information revealing alleged serious violations, must be protected from criminalization and retaliation. Protection of source identities, verification of command tasking orders, and assessment of whether disclosure revealed systemic risk are central.
(b) Rome Statute Article 28 — Command Responsibility: The Rome Statute distinguishes forms of individual participation from command or superior responsibility. Article 28 concerns effective authority or control, specified knowledge standards, and failures to take necessary and reasonable measures; its military and civilian-superior tests differ. Hierarchical proximity alone is insufficient. Conversely, delegation does not necessarily remove responsibility when legal requirements established. Technocratic impunity flourishes when everyone owns a task and nobody accepts responsibility for its foreseeable outcome. An investigation confined to the person who released a weapon may miss the decision that made a whole category of attacks routine. An accusation directed indiscriminately at every engineer or soldier would make the opposite mistake. Accountability must follow evidence through the institution, including upward, without becoming guilt by occupation or association.
(c) Digital disguise vs judicial proof: Digital disguise protects sources in a film; a court needs additional safeguards. Investigators should establish identities through secure procedures, distinguish firsthand observation from hearsay, test consistency, and corroborate claims without exposing witnesses unnecessarily. Fair-trial rights and witness protection strengthen prospect of durable accountability.
5. Policy Imperatives and the Crisis of Global Justice
A Global South approach must defend universal protection consistently. The killing of civilians and hostage-taking during the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 demand accountability. Those crimes cannot authorize subsequent crimes against Palestinians. Equally, condemnation of Israeli state conduct must never become collective blame against Jews or Israelis. Responsibility attaches to conduct and legally established participation.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. This is a finding by a UN-mandated independent investigative body, not a final judgment by an international court. UN institution. Israel rejects the genocide allegation. The legal institutions perform different functions. The ICJ addresses state responsibility; its provisional measures in South Africa v. Israel are binding protective action, not a final merits determination that genocide occurred. The ICC addresses individual criminal responsibility. Its November 2024 warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant concerned alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation; warrants are not convictions. Genocide requires proof of specific intent to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part. Neither a software system nor a casualty total alone establishes that intent. ICJ provisional measures, ICC warrant announcement, Rome Statute Article 6 define thresholds.
Legal precision must lead to protective action. Waiting for a final criminal verdict before restricting dangerous assistance confuses threshold for punishment with purpose of prevention. I propose the following measures:
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Stop material support for foreseeable atrocities — Arms Embargo (ATT Arts 6 & 7)
Governments should impose an arms embargo on Israel and immediately suspend transfers of weapons, components, and operational assistance carrying a serious risk of facilitating unlawful attacks. They should publish reasoned licensing decisions and prevent diversion through intermediaries. The Arms Trade Treaty establishes prohibited transfers under Article 6 and export-risk obligations under Article 7 for its states parties; it does not bind every state simply by existing. A comprehensive embargo is the policy demand advanced here, alongside compliance with each state's applicable obligations.
Benchmark: UN legal account of ATT; ATT Art 6 prohibits transfers if knowledge of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes; Art 7 requires export risk assessment of serious IHL/IHRL violations. -
Preserve the records that connect policy to impact — Chain-of-Custody Forensic Preservation
Independent investigators should seek lawful preservation of target lists, model versions, source data, uncertainty assessments, intercepted communications, authorization logs, casualty estimates, and post-strike reviews. Preservation requests should also reach relevant contractors. Evidence collection must protect personal data, survivors, and confidential sources. The aim is to reconstruct who knew what, when decisions changed, and whether warnings were ignored.
Evidentiary requirement: target verification logs, weapon yield records, contemporaneously projected casualty ratios, source code audits, error-rate documentation. -
Use international and domestic accountability together — Universal Jurisdiction
States should cooperate with the ICC in accordance with their obligations, support implementation of ICJ orders, and fund independent UN investigations. Domestic prosecutors should assess credible complaints under available universal-jurisdiction legislation. Such jurisdiction is not an automatic power of every court: national law, evidentiary requirements, presence rules where applicable, and immunity questions must be addressed. ICRC Rule 157: jurisdiction over war crimes.
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Make human control a constraint with consequences — Enforceable Human-Control Mandates
Governments should prohibit operational reliance on targeting systems that cannot support lawful distinction and context-sensitive assessment. Required safeguards should include independent validation, traceable reasons, uncertainty disclosure, protected refusal channels, and genuine authority to cancel attacks. A human signature cannot cure a policy designed to tolerate unlawful harm. Oversight must be able to stop deployment and sanction misconduct, not merely produce another compliance report.
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Put Palestinian survival and agency at the center — Humanitarian Imperative
States should secure sustained humanitarian access, civilian protection, independent monitoring of aid distribution, and reconstruction guided by Palestinian communities. Support should include medical evacuation, rehabilitation, psychosocial care, family tracing, and survivor-led documentation. Bangladesh can advocate these measures through multilateral diplomacy while strengthening its own consistency on civilian protection and institutional accountability. Solidarity has greater authority when standards demanded abroad are also defended at home.
The global crisis is not an absence of legal vocabulary. It is the willingness to let strategic relationships determine whether that vocabulary has consequences. A credible international order must scrutinize arms suppliers, executive offices, intelligence structures, and commercial assistance with the same seriousness that it scrutinizes the final act of violence.
NAZA, as reported, confronts the world with the possibility that foreseeable civilian destruction was embedded in operational design. The appropriate response is an independent examination capable of reaching those designs and their authors. Palestinian lives cannot be restored by replacing an acronym with a more sensitive phrase. Protection requires interrupting the machinery; justice requires establishing responsibility for how it was built, directed, and used.
Interactive Legal & Fact-Check Matrix
Comparing investigative disclosures, state rebuttals, IHL benchmarks, and evidentiary requirements for judicial merit.
| Investigative Disclosure (NAZA / Whistleblowers) | State Rebuttal (IDF Spokesperson / Chief of Staff) | Applicable Rule of Law / IHL Benchmark | Evidentiary Requirement for Judicial Merit |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Collateral Value System Pre-calculated strikes accepting mass civilian casualties in residential homes at night, with knowledge that relatives would be killed. Alleged planned strike anticipating 500 civilian deaths. Neighborhood destruction despite estimates up to 25% residents remained; systematic burning of civilian homes; killing at food distribution site. |
Denied as "completely false." Strikes approved solely by humans; "unprecedented precautions." IDF has never planned, approved, or carried out a strike anticipating 500 civilian deaths. Claims regarding national strategy beyond knowledge of junior soldiers; Intelligence Directorate soldiers allegedly interviewed would by definition not have been involved. |
ICRC Rule 1 Distinction between civilian and military ICRC Rule 14 Proportionality — excessive incidental harm prohibited ICRC Rule 15 Precautions in attack — feasible measures to avoid/minimize civilian harm Rome Statute Art 8(2)(b)(i)(iv) War crimes of intentional attack on civilians / disproportionate attack |
Target verification logs, weapon yield records, contemporaneously projected casualty ratios, evacuation assessment records, post-strike battle damage assessments, proof of concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, assessment of alternative timing/weapon/cancellation. Need to show actual knowledge and proportionality calculus, not generic campaign necessity. |
|
Autonomous Nomination Autonomous AI targeting nomination via intercepted phone data from thousands of hacked mobile phones. Algorithmic murder — organizing unlawful killing through computational systems, probability score acquiring institutional authority, human approval becoming signature applied to output whose uncertainty nobody seriously examines. Family conversations intercepted immediately before strikes. |
System only assists; final strike approval requires verified human signature. Decisions on selection and approval of strikes were made "by human personnel only... and not by artificial intelligence." Trailer presents false claims in distorted, falsified manner, disconnected from reality on ground. IDF is values-based military operating in accordance with international law. |
Rome Statute Art 28 Superior responsibility — superiors cannot contract out precaution duties to software; effective control + failure to take necessary measures Rome Statute Art 25 Individual participation modes — ordering, facilitating ICRC Rules 14-15 Precautions and proportionality require human contextual assessment; preset allowance cannot substitute Prohibition on indiscriminate attacks |
Source code audits, model versioning, training data bounds, error-rate documentation, uncertainty disclosure logs, override/cancellation authority records, operator training, evidence that system can support distinction and context-sensitive assessment. Interception logs relevant to knowledge of civilian presence. Must distinguish probabilistic label from lawful target status — suspected association ≠ combatant status. |
|
Whistleblower Disclosure Dissemination of insider intelligence, rooftop testimonies with digitally altered identities, secret intelligence unit reporting directly to executive office described as working to "thwart peace," chain-of-custody of classified targeting material used in film production. |
Labeled "blood libel," leak of classified materials, threatened prosecution. Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir orders MAG Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir to examine legal actions against film and those involved for false claims and security implications; orders top brass to examine information security and individuals involved in leaking. Planning Directorate multi-organizational team to counter false claims. Culture Minister Miki Zohar threatens to revoke citizenship of Abraham and Szor for "treason against the state." |
UN Special Rapporteur standards on whistleblower and journalist protections — public interest disclosure Freedom of Expression — prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of nationality as retaliation Rome Statute Art 28 — retaliation risks concealing command failure to prevent/punish ATT Art 6-7 — State responsibility extends to facilitating systems |
Protection of source identities, verification of command tasking orders, authenticated communications, budgets, organizational charts, testimony tested against contemporaneous records. Must distinguish firsthand observation from hearsay, assess whether disclosure revealed serious violations warranting protection. Citizenship revocation threats assessed against international prohibition on arbitrary deprivation and chilling effect on press. |
- The Guardian investigation, 10 Sept 2026: "Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed in new film" — Report assembling 24 Israeli military/intelligence insider testimonies; basis for NAZA description, algorithmic targeting, phone hacking, night home strikes, rooftop filming conditions. theguardian.com
- The Times of Israel, Sept 2026: "IDF chief floats legal action against 'NAZA' film, orders probe of leaked material" — Coverage of Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir instructing MAG Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir to examine legal action, ordering info security probe and Planning Directorate multi-organizational team, and Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin's statements. Also reports Miki Zohar citizenship threat and 500-casualty claim denial. timesofisrael.com
- Venice Film Festival, 83rd edition, 12 Sept 2026: Directors Yuval Abraham (left) and Rachel Szor winners of Special Jury Prize for film 'Naza' — photo by Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP.
- ICRC Customary IHL Database: Rule 1 Distinction (ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1), Rule 14 Proportionality (rule14), Rule 15 Precautions in attack (rule15), Rule 157 Jurisdiction over war crimes (rule157).
- Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: Article 6 Genocide, Article 25 Individual criminal responsibility, Article 28 Responsibility of commanders and other superiors. ohchr.org
- ICJ — South Africa v. Israel: Provisional measures case — binding protective measures, not final merits determination. icj-cij.org/case/192
- ICC Warrant Announcement, Nov 2024: Warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant concerning alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation; warrants are not convictions. icc-cpi.int
- Arms Trade Treaty: Articles 6 & 7 prohibited transfers and export assessment. UN legal account. legal.un.org/avl/ha/att
- UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, Sept 2025: Finding that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza — UN-mandated independent investigative body, not final judgment by international court; Israel rejects. ohchr.org ; Reporting on Israel's response via APNews apnews.com
- IPC Famine assessment & Joint UN agency statement: IPC confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate as of 15 Aug 2025, geographically and temporally specific. ipcinfo.org ; UN statement 22-08-2025. who.int
Minhaz Samad Chowdhury — HR Defender / Civic Vision Bangladesh
Bangladesh-based Independent Human Rights Defender, Rule of Law Advocate, Governance & Public Policy Analyst based in Sylhet. Work focuses on institutional accountability, civilian protection, customary IHL, and Global South perspectives on international justice. This dossier is independent analytical commentary. Documentary-specific reporting attributed to The Guardian; state responses attributed to The Times of Israel and IDF statements; legal conclusions are author's analysis distinguishing investigative findings from judicial determinations.
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