If this review questions some of the rigour and reasoning behind the most applauded and contested documentary of the year, which was given a record-breaking 25-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, it is not intended to diminish the depth and scale of suffering in Gaza.
Co-directed by Israelis Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor – two of the four co-directors of the Oscar-winning No Other Land – the film ends with an image that can never be forgotten; a line of several pairs of feet, small enough to belong to children, under a collapsed concrete building, their bodies apparently crushed while lying in bed. A father visibly loses his sanity as his hands scrape at rubble.
It is an image that speaks to much of the testimony given by 24 silhouetted, anonymised Israeli military intelligence officers interviewed at night on Tel Aviv rooftops by Abraham. Most specifically it speaks to a policy, as described by the interviewees, of targeting Hamas in their homes. The chances of a successful hit are greater there, it is explained.
NAZA, the film’s title, is an acronym used by the Israeli military when referring to the number or potential number of civilian casualties resulting directly from Israeli fire, more commonly known by the euphemism “collateral damage”.
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