Gaza War | An insult to the “purity of our fierce warriors”

A film scene from the documentary »Naza« Photo: Venice Biennale Once again, the government and opposition in Israel are united in the fight against the portrayal and perception abroad of the crimes committed by the army in the Gaza Strip. Even the lawmaker who publicly declared her intention to use "inaccurate bombs" against Gaza's civilian population accused "Naza" - the documentary film that won an award at the Venice Film Festival - of lying about the mass killing of Palestinians.

Tally Gotliv, Knesset member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party - and candidate for the upcoming elections for "Jewish Strength" (Otzma Yehudit), the party of suprematist Itamar Ben-Gwir - called for censorship and the arrest of those soldiers who admitted to the massacres. According to the MP, the portrayal they spread "seriously damages the resilience of the army and the purity of our fierce warriors."

On the same line is Naftali Bennett, one of the leading opposition politicians to Netanyahu and a candidate for prime minister after the October 27 elections. He described the work of directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor as a "terrible blood accusation" against Israeli soldiers. This term is now used by the leadership in Tel Aviv to equate allegations of killings, genocide, sexual violence and torture with a form of anti-Semitic demonization.

"What makes it particularly painful and annoying is that this lie comes from Israeli directors and is now being spread worldwide," Bennett posted on

"The death of every child is a tragedy, but a terrible war is not genocide."

But snipers and tank guns have also killed adults and children indiscriminately, as evidenced by countless video recordings, reports from Palestinian and international doctors, numerous witness statements and recent admissions by the army itself. However, their spokesman rejects the documentary's depictions; He downplays the role of artificial intelligence and explains that "unintentional harm" - that is, the staggering number of civilian casualties - that "results from lawful attacks" cannot be construed as deliberate intent to commit genocide.

The witness statements collected in the film describe exactly the opposite: an army for which the death of civilians is not a barrier to military action, but rather a calculated and indifferently accepted consequence.

The text was provided to "nd" by the left-wing Italian daily newspaper "Il Manifesto", with which we cooperate.

The army's response also aims to portray the statements of the 24 soldiers appearing in the documentary as unreliable by criticizing the anonymity behind which they protect themselves. The directors had already explained that the respondents represented only a part of the direct and indirect testimonies that were collected over the course of several years of research - a work to which investigative journalists from "+972 Magazine", "Local Call" and the British daily newspaper "The Guardian" also contributed.

At the time of going to press, there were no statements from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office; However, the Israeli press presented the film's content in different and sometimes contradictory ways. The reaction of "Yedioth Ahronoth", one of Israel's leading mainstream newspapers, is surprising: it described the work as "a factual and at the same time convincing indictment" and added - using a pun on the meaning of the title - that it could inflict "anything but merely 'collateral' damage to Israel's image worldwide."

The article's author, Amir Bogen, explains that by denying international press access to Gaza, Israel is forcing journalists to rely on reports from Palestinian colleagues whose credibility is questioned by Tel Aviv itself. But this time, Bogen continued, it was two Israeli directors who revealed what the army and security apparatus were keeping from the world.

The journalist is particularly impressed by the juxtaposition of the "gleaming skyscrapers" of Tel Aviv and the rubble of Gaza - a contrast that leads him to describe an Israel that "shows no interest in contributing to the relief effort." On the contrary. Perhaps that is precisely the goal: to keep everything buried beneath the surface - the tens of thousands of dead residents as well as the consciences of those who contributed to its demise. Another reason not to allow foreign journalists into Gaza.”

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