NAZA: harrowing documentary shows how killing in Gaza became just another day’s work

NAZA, a confronting new documentary by Israeli journalists Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, exposes how killing civilians in Gaza is a calculated, bureaucratic and disturbingly routine military practice.

Set against everyday life in Tel Aviv, a city just kilometres away from the site of genocide , the documentary’s horror lies not in what we see, but what we hear in the chilling accounts of those who made it possible.

Killing as a calculation Directed by two of the four filmmakers behind Oscar-winning No Other Land (2024), this 77-minute documentary builds on years of investigative reporting by +972 Magazine , Local Call and The Guardian , which also produced the film .

At its centre are interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel conducted between 2023 and 2025.

Their accounts reveal how artificial intelligence, surveillance technologies and military procedures were used to identify targets and authorise attacks in Gaza following October 7 2023.

The film’s title itself is telling.

NAZA is a military acronym for the Hebrew nezek agavi , meaning “collateral damage”.

It describes the estimated number of civilians expected to die in an attack.

Human lives, including children’s, are reduced to calculations: 10, 15 or 50 NAZA.

We hear the soldiers describe Gaza become a “factory of targets”.

Another acknowledges that an AI tool he developed had been used to kill thousands.

Their chilling logic extends to deciding when people should be killed.

One soldier explains why targeting Palestinians inside their homes at night, at times by hacking their children’s phones, is preferable to attacking them elsewhere.

“You feel like God because you know everything about them.” Building on Abraham’s earlier investigation into Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza , the documentary also explores how language can distance those conducting warfare from its human consequences.