A wave of fierce public and political backlash has swept across Israel this week, centered on two Israeli filmmakers whose documentary examining alleged war crimes in the country’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza won major international recognition. Dozens of far-right Israeli demonstrators assembled outside the family home of co-director Rachel Szor on Wednesday, issuing violent calls for her execution over the content of the film *NAZA*.
The controversy ignited after Szor and her creative partner Yuval Abraham, both Oscar-winning filmmakers, took home the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival this past Saturday for their work. Since the award announcement, the pair has faced escalating condemnation and threats from across Israeli political and public life.
Israeli daily *Haaretz* documented that multiple protesters gathered outside Szor’s home chanted demands for “the death penalty for traitors.” One demonstrator went even further, calling for not only the two filmmakers to be put to death upon their return to Israel but also for Szor’s family to be expelled from the country and their home permanently sealed. A far-right activist with confirmed close ties to Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir urged members of the crowd to publicly identify the filmmakers if they encountered them in any public space, insisting the pair should not be allowed to gather in any public venue such as restaurants. “Whoever sees them should circulate their location across all social and community groups — these scums have nowhere to run,” the activist stated.
Multiple right-wing outlets, including Walla, captured additional hostile remarks from attendees. “This is an act of treason from within,” one protester told the outlet. Photos from the protest show demonstrators holding signs labeling the pair “traitors” and waving flags of Israeli army combat units. One far-right attendee framed the controversy as a unifying cause for all of Israeli society, regardless of political alignment, saying “This is not a matter of right or left” and that all Israelis “need to denounce” the filmmakers. Other protesters vowed to keep organizing demonstrations until the entire country rejects the documentary’s claims, which they dismissed as “blood libels” against Israeli service members.
*NAZA*, the documentary at the center of the conflict, investigates the artificial intelligence targeting systems the Israeli military uses in its Gaza campaign and explores allegations that military planners explicitly factored high volumes of Palestinian civilian casualties into their targeting strategies. To build the film’s narrative, the directors conducted on-the-record interviews with 24 anonymous current and former Israeli military and intelligence insiders who shared firsthand insight into military targeting practices.
The backlash against the film and its creators has expanded far beyond far-right street protesters, with mainstream politicians, leading journalists, and senior public figures uniformly lining up to condemn the pair and challenge the film’s core claims. A public opinion poll published by Israel’s Channel 13 News on Wednesday underscores the depth of public rejection of the documentary’s claims: 68 percent of surveyed Israeli adults said they do not accept the film’s allegations of intentional mass civilian killing in Gaza, while only 13 percent said they find the claims credible. On the question of whether the film should be banned from public screening in Israel, 48 percent of respondents supported a ban compared to 32 percent who opposed restrictions on screening.
In the days following the Venice Film Festival award, senior Israeli political leaders have doubled down on public attacks, even proposing legislative and legal action against the filmmakers. As early as Sunday, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar called *NAZA* “despicable” and announced he would move immediately to revoke the Israeli citizenship of the two creators on charges of treason against the state. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined Zohar in condemning the pair, revealing he would introduce two new pieces of legislation targeting anyone found to “defame” the Israeli military. The first bill would codify the revocation of citizenship for anyone convicted of defaming Israeli soldiers, while the second would increase potential civil defamation damages against such individuals by 20 times. “They have no place among us,” Netanyahu said of anyone who defames the country’s military.
Even before reviewing the film’s content, the Israeli military has formally rejected all of its allegations. Israeli media reports confirm that IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has ordered the military’s legal corps, working in partnership with Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet, to pursue legal action against Szor and Abraham.
Prominent Israeli journalists have also joined the condemnation, with many questioning the film’s journalistic credibility and attacking the directors. Michael Shemesh, a political correspondent for the left-leaning Channel 13 News, wrote Tuesday that “One good thing came out of the film *NAZA*: There is a price for defamation,” and praised what he called cross-ideological Israeli unity in rejecting the film. Amit Segal, one of Israel’s most high-profile journalists with Channel 12 News, drew widespread attention Tuesday when he compared *NAZA* to Adolf Hitler’s antisemitic manifesto *Mein Kampf*. After the Union of Journalists in Israel — the country’s largest journalists’ organization — issued a formal statement condemning the threats and attacks against Szor and Abraham, Segal dismissed the union as “a supporter of Hamas’s propaganda ministry,” implying the filmmakers were operating on behalf of the Palestinian armed group.
Not all official voices have backed the backlash, however. A report published by Channel 12 News noted that senior military and diplomatic officials have expressed discomfort with the coordinated attacks on the filmmakers, warning that the aggressive crackdown risks framing Israel globally as a state that does not tolerate freedom of expression. These unnamed officials also accused Netanyahu of exploiting the controversy surrounding the documentary for domestic political gain. “Israel is trapped between what is right for it internationally and what is right for politicians electorally,” the officials told the outlet.