Israel Promotes Film Challenging Controversial Gaza Documentary

Published: 09 October 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online

The Israeli government is promoting an online film that imitates the style of NAZA, an award-winning documentary examining allegations of mass killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, intensifying an increasingly bitter dispute over the war, public accountability and the power of documentary filmmaking. The rival production, titled *NAZA: The Real Story*, has been circulated by Israeli diplomatic missions as officials and supporters seek to challenge the original film’s findings and defend Israel’s military conduct.

The controversy has grown beyond a disagreement over competing interpretations of the Gaza war. The original documentary’s filmmakers, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, have faced fierce political criticism, threats and calls for punitive action in Israel. Meanwhile, questions have emerged about the rival film’s presentation, its online audience figures and the circumstances surrounding the website initially used to promote it. The episode illustrates how documentaries about armed conflict can become central to wider battles over political messaging, national reputation and the credibility of evidence.

The original NAZA documentary, directed by Oscar-winning filmmakers Abraham and Szor and produced by The Guardian, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September, where it won the Special Jury Prize. The film received an exceptionally long ovation at the festival and has since been scheduled for theatrical releases in more than 50 countries. Its international reach has placed its examination of Israeli military operations under growing scrutiny, while drawing a forceful response from Israeli officials.

Based on interviews with 24 Israeli military insiders, NAZA examines the use of artificial intelligence-assisted surveillance and targeting systems during Israel’s war in Gaza. The documentary investigates how military systems were used to identify Hamas operatives and explores allegations that these methods operated with the knowledge that large numbers of Palestinian civilians could also be killed. The filmmakers have said they consulted more than 100 sources with knowledge of Israeli military practices.

The Israeli government has strongly rejected the documentary’s portrayal of military conduct. Officials have accused the filmmakers of harming the country’s interests, and the government has announced plans to seek the removal of their Israeli citizenship, accusing them of treason. The dispute has intensified as the film has reached audiences outside Israel, raising the possibility that its claims will influence international debate over the conduct of the war.

In recent days, Israeli embassies have shared links to *NAZA: The Real Story*, a hastily produced online film that adopts elements of the original documentary’s presentation. These include anonymised interviews filmed on rooftops in Tel Aviv, creating a visual resemblance to the style used by Abraham and Szor. The rival production is hosted on a website whose domain was registered on 16 September, six days after the original documentary premiered in Venice.

Ariel Averbuch, an Israeli attorney and army reservist involved in making the rival film, described the project as an offensive move intended to redirect international attention away from allegations concerning civilian deaths in Gaza. The film argues that Israel has the “most moral army in the world”, presenting a sharply contrasting interpretation of the military’s actions.

Roi Danino, who is identified on the website as another filmmaker associated with the production, is a candidate for the right-wing Israel First party. The project’s political associations have added to questions about its purpose and how its claims should be assessed.

Particular concern has focused on the website’s early presentation. Initially, the page appeared to promote the original NAZA documentary, falsely identifying Abraham and Szor as its directors and listing film festivals where their production was scheduled to screen. Its wording also altered the original film’s description, presenting the documentary as an account of Israel’s campaign against terrorists while removing the reference to Palestinian civilian deaths.

The misleading description was changed after the rival film’s video was added to the website. The page now appears to function as a platform for *NAZA: The Real Story*, but its earlier presentation has raised questions about whether visitors could have mistaken the rival production for the award-winning documentary.

The website also displays a counter claiming that the short film has received more than 42 million views. That figure appears difficult to reconcile with the approximately 30,000 views listed on the film’s official YouTube page. A technical analysis suggested that the counter might reflect requests made to the website by people or automated systems rather than verified individual viewings.

When asked about the source of the 42-million figure, Averbuch said he did not know and referred questions to his technical team. Without independently verifiable information about the counting method, the displayed number cannot establish how many people have actually watched the film. The discrepancy has become another point of contention in a dispute where online reach and public influence are important elements of the competing campaigns.

The Israeli embassy in the United States, which shared the rival documentary on social media, said the foreign ministry had not participated in producing it. The embassy said its intention was to amplify the creators’ message and make their arguments available to wider audiences, describing those arguments as a challenge to what it called false allegations against Israel.

On Thursday, the Israeli government announced that it was awarding the filmmakers behind the rival production a certificate of appreciation for their contribution to Israeli public diplomacy. Officials cited the film’s claimed reach, including assertions that it had attracted tens of millions of views. The move has placed the production within a broader effort to counter criticism of Israel’s conduct during the Gaza war.

The original NAZA documentary addresses allegations concerning a military campaign that has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, according to the figures cited in the reporting. A United Nations commission of inquiry has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, a grave finding that Israel disputes. The documentary’s examination of surveillance, targeting decisions and civilian deaths has therefore become part of a larger international debate about possible violations of international law and responsibility for the war’s consequences.

The response to the film has included official criticism and increasingly hostile rhetoric directed at its creators. Within a week of the Venice premiere, Israel’s culture ministry announced a formal investigation into the documentary and called for Abraham and Szor to lose their citizenship. The military’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, said the armed forces would use every available tool against the film, while the Israel Defense Forces issued a ten-page response addressing its claims.

The filmmakers have also faced threats from far-right activists. Demonstrators gathered outside Szor’s parents’ home, demanding that she face the death penalty, while a mural depicting the filmmakers through the sights of a gun appeared in the Israeli city of Ashdod. On Monday, far-right activist Mordechai David announced that he was raising money to establish a team to pursue Abraham, saying in a social media video that they would find him.

These incidents have raised concerns about the personal consequences of political attacks on journalists and filmmakers. Documentary makers investigating the actions of their own government may face particular pressure when their work challenges official accounts of national security or military conduct. Threats against individuals can also create a wider chilling effect, discouraging others from examining sensitive issues or speaking publicly about their experiences.

Abraham and Szor addressed the backlash during a question-and-answer session following the film’s New York premiere. Szor said the Israeli state was attempting to conceal the systems examined in the documentary and argued that the subject was not openly discussed even within Israeli society. Their supporters have continued to defend the film’s investigative approach and its effort to bring military decision-making into public view.

At the London Film Festival on Thursday, producer James Wilson said the filmmakers had anticipated criticism but had not expected the scale of the response or the threats directed at them. He described the experience as stressful and frightening, particularly given the prospect of political leaders seeking treason-related action against people who had made a documentary.

The controversy also connects to the filmmakers’ earlier work. Abraham and Szor were involved in *No Other Land*, an Oscar-winning documentary about the destruction of the Palestinian village of Masafer Yatta. Its Palestinian co-directors, Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, have faced harassment or detention by Israeli forces since the film won its Academy Award in 2025. The experiences of those filmmakers have reinforced concerns among supporters that documentaries challenging official Israeli policy can expose their creators to intimidation.

NAZA is due to become available free on The Guardian’s website in late November, extending its potential audience beyond cinema screenings. That prospect may further intensify the competing campaigns surrounding the documentary and its rival.

At the centre of the dispute is a fundamental question about how audiences can distinguish evidence-based investigation from politically motivated messaging. Competing films are entitled to present different interpretations, but claims about authorship, viewing figures and military conduct require transparency and independent scrutiny. The use of a website that initially misrepresented its relationship to the original documentary makes that distinction especially important.

As the Gaza war continues to shape international opinion, the conflict over NAZA demonstrates that the struggle for public understanding extends beyond the battlefield. Film has become a vehicle for investigating alleged civilian harm, defending national institutions and contesting political narratives. Whether audiences ultimately accept the original documentary’s findings or the rival film’s arguments will depend not only on the claims made by each side but also on the credibility of the evidence and the openness with which those claims are examined.