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Israeli Minister Seeks to Strip Citizenship Over Gaza Film

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Culture Minister Miki Zohar has demanded the Oscar-winning directors of 'Naza' lose Israeli citizenship, calling the Gaza documentary treasonous.

Israel's culture minister has demanded that two Oscar-winning Israeli directors be stripped of their citizenship over a new documentary that alleges the Israeli army deliberately killed large numbers of civilians in Gaza. Miki Zohar accused the co-directors of "treason against the state" in remarks published on 14 September 2026.

The film, titled *Naza*, was made by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. Its name comes from a Hebrew military acronym for collateral damage. Running 80 minutes, the documentary is built around interviews with 24 unnamed Israeli military and intelligence officers, who describe artificial-intelligence targeting systems the army used to strike Gaza during the war that began with the Hamas-led assault on 7 October 2023.

According to the film's official synopsis, it lays out "the systems behind Israel's calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza." One officer interviewed on camera says commanders once cleared a strike expected to kill 500 people in order to hit "one human target." The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) called that account "completely false."

In the offensive that followed the October 2023 attack, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed, among them over 20,000 children, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. The United Nations regards those numbers as reliable. During the initial Hamas assault, roughly 1,200 people were killed and 251 were seized as hostages.

Zohar set out his objections in a message on X and in a formal letter to Israel's Interior Ministry. He asked state authorities to examine how the filmmakers acquired their material, who stood behind the project, and whether obtaining or releasing it involved conduct that could count as helping an enemy in wartime. In the letter he wrote that the film's claims were untrue and twisted, and he rejected any suggestion that Israeli soldiers or the state had committed deliberate crimes.

The minister pointed to Israel's Citizenship Law, which he said permits revoking citizenship for a "breach of allegiance to the State of Israel." That power has almost never been used. Abraham and Szor did not immediately respond to his call.

From an Oscar to Venice

The two directors are not new to controversy or to acclaim. Last year they won an Academy Award for *No Other Land*, which documented attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

*Naza* had its premiere the previous Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, where it drew a standing ovation lasting 25 minutes and took a special jury prize. The film has not yet been released to general audiences. It was produced with Britain's *Guardian* newspaper.

Speaking in Venice, Abraham defended the work as carefully reported and dismissed efforts to undermine it as a refusal to confront what happened. "It's a war that has principally been killing civilians," he told the Associated Press. He said the film shows the pattern was "not some mistake" and "not an accident," but "something very, very systemic," adding that the picture is drawn "from the inside, with insider testimony."

The army's response

The IDF first said it flatly rejected the film's allegations. It later put out a further statement through its spokesperson, Brig-Gen Effie Defrin, who noted that *Naza* has not yet been shown in full. Judging from the promotional footage available so far, he said, the film presents a set of grave claims. The army's fuller response was still unfolding as the dispute drew wider attention.

The clash places two of Israel's most prominent documentary makers at the centre of a fight over how the Gaza war is recorded and remembered. Their earlier film brought international recognition; their latest work has now brought a cabinet minister's demand that they be treated as enemies of the state.

For now, the standoff rests on material the public cannot yet watch. The government is targeting a film that remains largely unseen, relying on trailers and festival screenings, while the directors insist their testimony will hold up once audiences can judge it for themselves. Whether Zohar's request leads to any formal action under the Citizenship Law remains unclear, given how seldom the measure has been invoked.

Naza documentary, Miki Zohar, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Israel citizenship revocation, Gaza war, Venice Film Festival, IDF targeting systems

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