Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Aug 24

Guardian-Produced Gaza Documentary 'NAZA' Lands 1 Venice Golden Lion Competition Slot

Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Aug 24

Guardian-Produced Gaza Documentary 'NAZA' Lands 1 Venice Golden Lion Competition Slot

Q: What does the military acronym NAZA reveal about the calculated systems behind civilian casualties in Gaza?

NAZA points to an alleged bureaucratic logic behind civilian deaths: according to the film’s producers and related reporting, it is a military acronym used by Israeli intelligence as a euphemism for the number of civilians expected to be killed in a planned airstrike. That makes the title significant. It suggests civilian casualties were not treated simply as unforeseen “collateral damage,” but were estimated in advance within targeting procedures. In the filmmakers’ framing, the acronym embodies a system in which expected civilian deaths are quantified, logged and folded into operational decision-making. The documentary is reported to build on investigations by +972 Magazine, Local Call and The Guardian from 2023 to 2025. Those reports examined how targeting processes worked during the Gaza war, including the use of data-driven or intelligence-based systems to generate targets and assess permissible harm. The implication is that civilian loss was measured and managed through formal mechanisms rather than occurring only by accident. The film’s synopsis goes further, arguing that these systems helped enable what it calls Israel’s “calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.” That is the documentary’s characterization, and a contested one politically and legally. But the acronym itself, as described by the producers, reveals the core allegation: that civilian deaths were anticipated numerically before strikes and embedded in the chain of military planning.

3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 24

NAZA will receive its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival as the only documentary competing this year for the Golden Lion.
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor — two of the four directors behind 2025 Oscar winner No Other Land — said the film was shot on Tel Aviv rooftops and details the systems behind Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
The Guardian said “NAZA” is an Israeli military acronym used by intelligence to denote the number of civilians expected to be killed in an airstrike; the film builds on investigative reporting published from 2023 to 2025.
The project reunites Abraham and Szor with Jim Wilson and executive producer Jonathan Glazer, the team behind The Zone of Interest, extending scrutiny of Israel’s conduct in Gaza after No Other Land drew global attention.