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Israel’s culture minister said he would act to revoke the citizenship of the creators of the “NAZA” documentary after it won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival over the weekend.
In the documentary, Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor interview 24 people identified as Israeli military and intelligence whistleblowers who describe the purported use of AI-powered targeting systems in Gaza, which they claim was used to kill Palestinian civilians.
Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar called the documentary’s victory at the film festival “shocking” and accused its creators of a “betrayal of the state.”
“The self-loathing that burns in the creators, who are willing to harm their homeland just to get applause from anti-semites around the world, is inconceivable,” Zohar said Sunday in a post on social media, adding that he would “act immediately to revoke the Israeli citizenship of” both filmmakers.
Although it is possible for Israel’s government to strip citizens of their nationality, national law requires the country’s interior minister to submit a revocation request, which then has to be approved by the justice minister before being validated by judges.
Zohar said in a new post Monday that he had “contacted the Director General of the Population Authority and the Director General of the Ministry of Interior to examine the denial of Israeli citizenship” to the documentarians “for breach of trust for the country and cooperation with the enemy, and to examine how the materials were obtained, who is behind them and whether in the framework of their attainment or publication, actions have been carried out that can help the enemy in time of war.”
There has been no immediate response from the Interior Ministry, but other Israeli cabinet members have also slammed the directors, who won an Oscar in 2025 for their previous film “No Other Land,” about Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
“You are a disgrace and an embarrassment to the entire people of Israel. Go away!” far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on X. “I am certain that your friends, that is to say our enemies Hamas in Gaza, will welcome you with open arms.”
After the 80-minute documentary was screened at the Venice festival, Yuval Abraham told the audience Israeli intelligence officers interviewed for the film had said the “mass killing is systemic: not by accident, but by design, actions of murder and policies that are based on the total dehumanization of Palestinians.”
Israel’s military has criticized the use of accounts from anonymous sources in the documentary, saying Friday that the identities of the whistleblowers “cannot be verified.” The Israel Defense Forces has repeatedly denied any deliberate targeting of civilians in the Palestinian territories.
The film was described as an “urgent, gut-punch” by film magazine Screen, while The Hollywood Reporter said it inspired “outrage” and “most certainly disgust, on a profound level, for the current Israeli regime.”
