More than a thousand Israeli filmmakers demand freedom for “NAZA” authors

Ain a joint statement, humanitarian organisations called on the Israeli authorities to cease the incitement and threats against Yuval Abraham and Rachel Shor, and to refrain from pursuing the filmmakers or their sources, officers of the Israeli military secret services who testified under anonymity.

“The institutional response to the film and the threats against its creators are typical of dictatorial regimes”, says the declaration signed by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) Peace Now, Adalah, B’Tselem, Doctors for Human Rights Israel or Breaking the Silence, among others.

In turn, more than a thousand Israeli filmmakers signed a petition on Atzuma’s collective platform for “freedom of expression and creation”, appealing to others to express their solidarity with Shor and Abraham.

“ In recent days, we have seen an unprecedented campaign of defamation and incitement against filmmakers, and the distance between this and violence and the physical threat to their lives is diminishing increasingly”, denounce the artists in the manifesto.

The filmmakers argue that “the main function of art and journalism is to reflect the society in which they operate, generate dialogue and debate without prejudice, even when reality is difficult”.

Among the signatories, according to the newspaper Haaretz, are the prominent Israeli filmmakers Ari Folman – who held ‘Valsa with Bashir’ –, Shlomi Elkabetz and documentary director Ran Tal.

“ We hope that the film will be distributed in Israel as soon as possible and that everyone can see it, form their own opinion and generate a genuine and direct debate about the war in Gaza and its consequences, a debate that has so far barely occurred in Israeli media and society.”, add.

Both groups also rejected the request of Israeli Minister of Culture, Miki Zohar, to withdraw the citizenship of Abraham and Shor due to the documentary.

NGOs also demanded a “serious” Israeli investigation into the high number of victims in Gaza, including civilians – according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and about 8,000 remain missing – and free access for journalists to Gaza (where Israel has not allowed them access since October 2023).

The documentary, produced by the British newspaper The Guardian and which won the jury’s special award at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, owes its name to the acronym used by the Israeli intelligence service to estimate the number of civilians who will die in an air strike – for example, “20 NAZA”.

In 80 minutes, ‘NAZA’ analyzes Israel’s campaign of systematic attacks on the Palestinian enclave through the testimony of 24 intelligence officers and soldiers detailing telephone espionage strategies and artificial intelligence systems to identify targets.

According to their directors, this mechanism acts as a large-scale system that deliberately causes the death of hundreds of civilian collateral victims in a single attack.