Israeli Minister to Strip NAZA Documentary Directors of Citizenship

Israel’s Culture Minister Miki Zohar has announced that he wants to revoke the citizenship of the directors of NAZA, a documentary that features Israeli military personnel accusing the Israeli army of killing large numbers of civilians in Gaza.

Zohar said he would immediately seek to strip filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Shore of their Israeli citizenship, accusing them of “treason against the state”. The documentary won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

“I will act immediately to revoke Israeli citizenship” from the directors, Zohar wrote on X.

The minister accused the filmmakers of seeking to “harm their homeland in order to receive the applause of antisemites around the world”, which he said amounted to treason.

Other Israeli ministers also attacked the filmmakers, who are investigative journalists and previously collaborated on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land (2024), which examined violence by Israeli authorities and settlers in the occupied West Bank.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X that the filmmakers were a “disgrace and a source of embarrassment for the entire Israeli people”.

“Leave!” he wrote, adding that he was certain that their “friends” — whom he described as “our enemies, Hamas in Gaza” — would welcome them “with open arms”.

Citizenship revocation possible under Israeli law

Israeli law allows the state to revoke citizenship, although authorities rarely use the measure.

Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s authority to revoke citizenship in 2022 in cases where individuals demonstrated a lack of “loyalty”, including through acts such as espionage or treason.

The law expanded in 2023 to also cover people convicted of “terrorism”.

The process requires the Interior Minister to submit a request, the Justice Minister to approve it and the courts to uphold the decision.

What NAZA alleges

The 80-minute NAZA documentary draws on anonymous testimony from 24 members of the Israeli military and intelligence services. They describe how Israeli forces allegedly kill civilians during the war against Hamas in Gaza.

The witnesses describe technological systems, including systems that use artificial intelligence, which they say allow the Israeli military to identify suspected Hamas members and their families through their mobile phones before striking their homes.

According to the documentary, “NAZA” serves as an acronym used within the Israeli military to indicate the estimated number of civilians expected to die in a strike.

One witness said military personnel have access to a tool that allows them to determine how many people are inside individual homes across Gaza and therefore how many people could be killed in a bombing.

Following the documentary’s screening in Venice, where audiences reportedly gave it a 25-minute standing ovation, the Israeli military rejected the allegations.

The military categorically denied claims that Israeli forces engage in the mass killing of civilians in Gaza.

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