"NAZA", the new documentary from Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (of 2024’s "No Other Land"), is a disheartening and baffling look at the unspeakable lengths our world will go to in being inhumane, with the help of technology.
It consists mostly of conversations Abraham conducts with Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers, who agreed to share the mechanics of killing Palestinians in Gaza. Most of these accounts concern airstrikes, and the whistleblowers describe having the means to locate their targets, learn where they live, and know what time they arrive home to their families.
Because of the power of the weapons used, each hit ripples into more deaths, including those of unsuspecting victims such as children. Before carrying out a strike, the officers have already calculated how many civilians they expect to kill. For these Israelis, Palestinian lives are reduced to collateral damage, or NAZA (military code for Nezek Agavi), and the success of each mission is quantified by the number of people hit (3 NAZA or 10 NAZA).
The process of killing civilians, let alone the gamification of it all, is one of the many gruelling revelations in “NAZA”. It is a documentary you wish did not need to exist. The interviews, filmed in secret at night on a rooftop in Tel Aviv, enable a broader investigation into Israeli military operations against Palestinians than even a strong documentary usually can. “NAZA” is an essential watch, but I feel the discussions that need to happen afterwards are the critical component.
“NAZA” is now showing in select cinemas in New Zealand.
Featured images from Madman Entertainment.
Comments
Post a Comment