{"id":37776,"date":"2026-10-18T12:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T04:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=37776"},"modified":"2026-11-07T14:49:06","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T06:49:06","slug":"they-know-the-house-they-are-bombing-is-full-of-children-nazas-directors-on-their-devastating-film-about-israeli-intelligence-xan-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/they-know-the-house-they-are-bombing-is-full-of-children-nazas-directors-on-their-devastating-film-about-israeli-intelligence-xan-brooks\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They know the house they are bombing is full of children\u2019: NAZA\u2019s directors on their devastating film about Israeli intelligence | Xan Brooks"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"Yuval<\/a><\/span>\u2018It\u2019s easier to kill people when you\u2019re doing it on a screen\u2019 \u2026 Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham collected the testimony of 24 insiders who helped remotely target Gazans\u2019 homes. They explain how they got these self-professed \u2018small cogs\u2019 to talk about the killing<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

On a darkened rooftop in Tel Aviv, Israeli intelligence officers outline the details of their work. These men tell us how they helped develop an AI mapping tool that trawled for phone signals and recommended apartment buildings in Gaza to bomb. Indirectly, they admit, they are responsible for thousands of deaths, but they never spoke up because that wasn\u2019t their place. \u201cMy role is technical,\u201d says one. \u201cI\u2019m just a small cog,\u201d says another.<\/span><\/p>\n

NAZA \u2013 directed by the Israeli film-makers Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham and produced by the Guardian \u2013 is a chilling documentary about a mass slaughter that was authorised at the highest levels of government. But it is also, primarily, about the process, the system, the little links in the killing chain. Szor and Abraham build their film around the accounts of 24 anonymised military and intelligence insiders. NAZA, we learn, is an acronym used by the intelligence service to indicate how many civilians it expects to die in an airstrike on Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces prefer to target Hamas terrorists in their homes at night \u2013 and if they live with their family, or in heavily populated neighbourhoods, too bad. At one point, a source claims, approval was given to kill 500 NAZA for one Hamas member.<\/span><\/p>\n

I meet Szor and Abraham at the Venice film festival, where NAZA is competing for the Golden Lion award. The pair won an Oscar for their previous documentary, 2024\u2019s No Other Land (co-directed with Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal), which spotlighted Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank. \u201cNo Other Land documented horrible crimes,\u201d Abraham says. \u201cBut at the same time it gave people \u2026 I don\u2019t want to say hope, but some light to latch on to. It\u2019s not a coincidence that this film is all in the dark. We are in a very dark place right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Gaza health ministry has reported more than 73,000 deaths in three years of Israeli bombardment, the vast majority of which have been civilian casualties. NAZA briefly shows us the rubble, grieving parents, dead children on the ground. Its main backdrop, though, is placid, normal Tel Aviv, just 44 miles to the north, where rush-hour traffic drifts dreamily on the street and the cinematheque is showing a Claude Lanzmann retrospective. Tellingly, the film was executive produced by Jonathan Glazer, the director of The Zone of Interest. Glazer, says Szor, supported the structure and creative approach she and Abraham had adopted, that fostered the sense of a home that sits next door to hell.<\/span><\/p>\n

NAZA deliberately concerns itself with the system \u2013 the policy of mass surveillance, the industrial business of murder \u2013 more than the individual psychology of those involved. But presumably its sources must feel guilt and shame, otherwise they\u2019d <\/span>never have agreed to put their careers and liberty at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u2018We are in a very dark place right now\u2019 \u2026 a scene from NAZA. Photograph: The Guardian<\/span><\/p>\n

Abraham is unconvinced. \u201cWell, it depends which one,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are many motivations for an individual to speak. Some people talk because they feel the opposite of shame. They feel pride in their accomplishment and expertise. Remember that these people serve in sensitive units. They are not often asked what they do. So there is an attraction to [our] curiosity that drives them to speak up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The film uncovers a system that is fiendishly efficient. Its series of disconnects appears designed to distance the perpetrators from the crime. Many of these men work remotely from Tel Aviv. AI selects the target and a drone drops the bomb. Even the language feels purposely euphemistic and obfuscatory. NAZA translates as collateral damage, which in turn translates to human beings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSure, it\u2019s easier to kill people when you\u2019re doing it on a screen,\u201d Abraham says. \u201cThere is some truth in that, I guess. But equally it should be said that intelligence officers know the most. They listen to the cellphones. They know the house they are bombing is full of children. They can hear babies crying. They still order another strike.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the status of these men now? Some discuss their work in the past tense. Others don\u2019t, which suggests that they might still be at work, overseeing airstrikes each night. Abraham won\u2019t say; he\u2019s mindful of protecting his sources. \u201cBut you can imagine. We are dealing with 24 people, so there is a whole variety of statuses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n