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'NAZA’ director on Israeli military operations exposed in film · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Who gets to decide whose life is worth saving and
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: whose death can be written off? That is the question
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: at the heart of Nasa, a groundbreaking new film I
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  Speaker 1: watched just last night from Israeli documentarians Yuval Abraham and
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Rachel Soar. The title comes from a Hebrew military term
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  Speaker 1: for collateral damage. It's a clinical phrase for the lives
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  Speaker 1: lost when a military decides the cost of an operation
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  Speaker 1: is worth the price. In other words, the human cost.
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  Speaker 1: Nasa pulls back the curtain on Israel's military operations as
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  Speaker 1: Abraham sits down with 24 Israeli intelligence personnel and soldiers
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  Speaker 1: who describe the orders that they received and the strikes
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  Speaker 1: they carried out and the decisions that shaped the war.
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  Speaker 1: It is a scathing expose on the IDF's calculated targeting
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  Speaker 1: of civilians in Gaza through missile strikes and sniper fire
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  Speaker 1: and surveillance. On dark rooftops across Tel Aviv, the soldiers
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  Speaker 1: recount their roles and operations that revealed A system in
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  Speaker 1: which civilian deaths were not simply an unfortunate consequence of war,
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  Speaker 1: but an accepted and sometimes deliberate part of its calculus.
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  Speaker 2: Watch.
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  Speaker 3: What's the highest number you remember of a single attack?
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  Speaker 3: But there was a deposit of 500, like, on one person.
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  Speaker 3: 500 is like a small settlement in the State of Israel. Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Were you involved in the demolition of these buildings? Very much.
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  Speaker 4: Very much?
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: How did you know if you heard a baby crying
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  Speaker 3: at home?
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  Speaker 4: So... The.
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  Speaker 3: First thing that came to my mind was hate. So
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  Speaker 3: you understand that, like, the goal is to destroy.
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  Speaker 4: There's this game of.
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  Speaker 2: The Azatim, they need to go exactly in the gap,
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  Speaker 2: and if they go out of the gap, they will
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  Speaker 2: be killed. Like, there's the division of food, there's the
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  Speaker 2: gap that they go.
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  Speaker 3: Through, and there's, like, such losses.
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  Speaker 2: People want to go into the losses in order to
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  Speaker 2: get to the food, and people, bam, it's like thousands.
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  Speaker 3: They kill them. Like, it's funny, because even the thousands kill.
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  Speaker 3: They want so much food that it's not enough. You
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  Speaker 3: see it on the screen?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: You understand the goal is to destroy, he said. Those
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  Speaker 1: are voices of people who were inside the system describing
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  Speaker 1: how it worked in their own words. The film received
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  Speaker 1: a record 25-minute long standing ovation at the Venice Film
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  Speaker 1: Festival this year. But in Israel, it has sparked fierce backlash.
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  Speaker 1: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to strip Abraham and
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  Speaker 1: Sor of their Israeli citizenship, despite lacking the legal authority
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  Speaker 1: to do so. I don't think it's hard to understand why.
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  Speaker 1: Joining me now is Academy Award-winning filmmaker Yuval Abraham. He
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  Speaker 1: is an investigative journalist and he's the co-director of Naza.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me on the show.
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  Speaker 1: The film is extraordinary.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. It's really good to be here
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  Speaker 3: with you. Thank you. Thanks.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks, Yuval. These, they're confessionals, basically, and they could put
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  Speaker 1: those soldiers, I think, in compromising positions, to be sure,
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  Speaker 1: should their identities to be revealed. How did you do this?
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  Speaker 1: How did you get them to share those details with you?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, this film is based on investigative work that
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  Speaker 4: I've been working on for the past three years, together
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  Speaker 4: with colleagues at The Guardian, that is also producing this film.
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  Speaker 4: And Plus 972 magazine, which is an Israeli-Palestinian media outlet.
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  Speaker 4: And it's a complicated process of finding the right people.
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  Speaker 4: Often you move from person to person. A lot of
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  Speaker 4: people in Israel, a lot of Israelis went into the
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  Speaker 4: military after the October 7th attack and massacre, and there
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  Speaker 4: was a big pool of people who were in the military,
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  Speaker 4: and they had different motivations to speak. I think For
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  Speaker 4: some of them, perhaps for many of them, it was
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  Speaker 4: a sense that they had a responsibility to share those details,
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  Speaker 4: to speak about it in Hebrew. So the Israeli audience
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  Speaker 4: hears about it, but also that the American audience and
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  Speaker 4: that international audiences hear about what they've done, hear about
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  Speaker 4: their actions.
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  Speaker 1: The backlash that the film has received from the IDF
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  Speaker 1: and Prime Minister Netanyahu, I'm sure, is not surprising to you.
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  Speaker 1: Or maybe, I mean, maybe the extent of it is.
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  Speaker 1: I just want to read earlier this month, they released,
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  Speaker 1: the IDF did a really lengthy statement in response to
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  Speaker 1: the film.
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  Speaker 3: And here's some of it.
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  Speaker 1: The IDF is open to hearing genuine criticism of conduct
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  Speaker 1: and detaches importance to learning from substantiated allegations, continually improving
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  Speaker 1: its practices. It's bound by and committed to international humanitarian law.
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  Speaker 1: Its operational procedures are designed to implement those legal obligations.
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  Speaker 1: It operates dedicated units and mechanisms to mitigate civilian harm.
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  Speaker 1: The claims made in the film, though, have been further
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  Speaker 1: corroborated by other soldiers that you didn't interview, but you
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  Speaker 1: and your team continue to face all this backlash from
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  Speaker 1: within Israel. Why do you think that your film in
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  Speaker 1: particular has provoked such an intense reaction?
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  Speaker 4: Look, I think it's clear that the IDF and that
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  Speaker 4: people in the Israeli government, in the Netanyahu government, don't
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  Speaker 4: want these revelations to come out. They don't want people
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  Speaker 4: to listen to these soldiers. They'd much rather people only
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  Speaker 4: have the spokesperson's version, the IDF spokesperson's version, which you've
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  Speaker 4: just read right now. It is, I think, important to
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  Speaker 4: point that in this message that you read, that the
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  Speaker 4: IDF is open to genuine criticism. It is puzzling because
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  Speaker 4: the I don't because the IDF is not allowing the
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  Speaker 4: international media to enter the Gaza Strip freely. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: international journalists, including journalists who work for this channel and
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  Speaker 4: other channels in the United States. should be allowed to
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  Speaker 4: enter Gaza and see with their own eyes. I don't
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  Speaker 4: think this burden of documenting what is happening there should
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  Speaker 4: fall only on Palestinian journalists, many of whom paid with
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  Speaker 4: their lives. And the fact that the IDF is not
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  Speaker 4: allowing that, that the Israeli government is not allowing that
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  Speaker 4: after three years, almost more than three years, after October
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  Speaker 4: the 7th is quite telling.
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  Speaker 3: And I think it shows that they are not open
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  Speaker 3: to such criticisms.
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  Speaker 1: I want to play another moment from the film when
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  Speaker 1: you were speaking with the soldier about his operations monitoring
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  Speaker 1: food distribution effort inside of Gaza. And we'll talk about
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  Speaker 1: it on the other side of the clip.
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  Speaker 4: Let's watch.
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  Speaker 2: You asked him there, are you describing mass murder around
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  Speaker 2: this food distribution site? And he said, I don't know
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  Speaker 2: how many people died, but then he eventually.
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  Speaker 4: Said, yes.
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  Speaker 3: And he said, sometimes.
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  Speaker 1: And this happens throughout the film when you're talking about NASA,
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  Speaker 1: so-called NASA civilian casualties or collateral damage. Dozens, sometimes incidents
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  Speaker 1: where hundreds of people were killed in these strikes. When
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  Speaker 1: you heard him say that, that this was mass murder,
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  Speaker 1: what went through your mind?
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  Speaker 4: It was very shocking to hear, for me especially, these
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  Speaker 4: testimonies about the food sites. I mean, these are mainly
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  Speaker 4: food sites that were run by the GHF, by the
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  Speaker 4: so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which some of your viewers may
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  Speaker 4: recall was an American-led operation, essentially stopping the UN-led food
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  Speaker 4: distribution and doing these food sites that were described at
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  Speaker 4: the time as death traps for Palestinians in Gaza. The
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  Speaker 4: UN reported that between May to October of 2025, there
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  Speaker 4: were 2,600 Palestinians who were killed in those food sites.
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  Speaker 4: And I knew that that was happening. I knew that
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  Speaker 4: the Israeli army was opening fire on Palestinians that are
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  Speaker 4: running towards food when the soldiers are not under threat.
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  Speaker 4: It was reported on by Palestinians at the time, and
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  Speaker 4: also by Israeli Haaretz, by Israeli journalists at the time.
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  Speaker 4: But there's something about, to me, about hearing it, hearing
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  Speaker 4: that confession, hearing it from someone who was looking at
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  Speaker 4: the screen, as he's saying, and seeing these Palestinians running
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  Speaker 4: towards food, hungry people, and being shot at by snipers,
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  Speaker 4: that is just shocking. And it makes me think, as
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  Speaker 4: an Israeli, about the responsibility of my own government in this.
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  Speaker 4: And I think, I would hope that Americans who come
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  Speaker 4: and watch this film, I think, should also think about
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  Speaker 4: the responsibility of your government in this.
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  Speaker 3: Because It is clearly, in my view, a crime. And
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  Speaker 3: much of this is continuing.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, just yesterday, an 80-year-old girl, Shahid Najjar, in
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  Speaker 4: Gaza was reportedly killed by an Israeli drone. So despite,
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  Speaker 4: you know, you hear Donald Trump speaking about a ceasefire,
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  Speaker 4: clearly looking at what has happened over the past year
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  Speaker 4: in Gaza, when since that so-called ceasefire was announced, 1,400
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  Speaker 4: Palestinians were killed. There is no ceasefire and we need
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  Speaker 4: a true ceasefire and we need a true future with
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  Speaker 4: a political solution, which is what I hope for.
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  Speaker 1: Yuval, after the horrific mass murder on October 7th by Hamas,
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  Speaker 1: so many people... around the world expressed their outrage, including
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  Speaker 1: the soldiers and the intelligence operatives in your film about
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  Speaker 1: how they felt. But some of them expressed in the
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  Speaker 1: film how participating in the war in Gaza changed their
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  Speaker 1: outlook on the war itself. Would you say that that
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  Speaker 1: was true of all 24 of the people that you
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  Speaker 1: spoke to for the film?
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  Speaker 4: Well, maybe not for all of them, but I think
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  Speaker 4: many of them spoke about disillusionment, this feeling that, as
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  Speaker 4: you said, exactly right, that after the massacre of October
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  Speaker 4: the 7th, which was appalling, there was a sense of helplessness.
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  Speaker 4: Some of them described a sense that they wanted to
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  Speaker 4: do something, to join the army. And very quickly, some
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  Speaker 4: of them realized that they themselves were now participating in crimes.
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  Speaker 4: They talked about bombing families inside their homes in a
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  Speaker 4: systematic way. They spoke about Hearing, you know, hearing inside
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  Speaker 4: through the phones, hearing inside homes before they were bombing them,
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  Speaker 4: that there were children inside and families inside. And doing
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  Speaker 4: so not because, you know, of a particular decision of
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  Speaker 4: one particular rogue soldier, but as a matter of policy.
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  Speaker 3: And that was.
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  Speaker 4: Definitely a motivation for some of them to speak. They said, obviously,
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  Speaker 4: October the 7th. is completely unjustified. It's an atrocity, but
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  Speaker 4: it also does not justify atrocities that are being committed
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  Speaker 4: in the Gaza Strip and that have went on for
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  Speaker 4: so long, supported, unfortunately, by many, many Western countries.
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  Speaker 1: You get into, in the film, a program called Lavender,
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  Speaker 1: which uses AI to surveil and target Palestinians in Gaza.
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  Speaker 1: This was something that he had written about in 2024.
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  Speaker 1: You wrote, Lavender has played a central role in the
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  Speaker 1: unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of
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  Speaker 1: the war. In fact, according to sources, its influence on
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  Speaker 1: the military's operations was such that they essentially treated the
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  Speaker 1: outputs of the AI machine as if it were a
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  Speaker 1: human decision. To hear about this in the film and
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  Speaker 1: to hear about some of these intelligence officers from the
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  Speaker 1: Israeli military talk about using it, you understand why you've
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  Speaker 1: explained that the machine was formally developed. designed to target
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  Speaker 1: Hamas operatives in Gaza, but found out that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: there was basically sweeping approval from the army to the
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  Speaker 1: officers to basically adopt kill lists without thoroughly checking them.
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  Speaker 1: What ultimately is the result of that in Gaza?
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  Speaker 4: Yes, so there are two important decisions here that were
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  Speaker 4: made by the military. The first is, as you say,
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  Speaker 4: to use artificial intelligence to create a very long key
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  Speaker 4: list of suspected Hamas operatives. The challenge that they faced
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  Speaker 4: was that the army, after October the 7th, only had
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  Speaker 4: a target bank that could last for a short period
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  Speaker 4: of time. And they wanted to make sure that targets
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  Speaker 4: don't run out. So they Among other things, relied on
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  Speaker 4: artificial intelligence to do that. But the main decision, the
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  Speaker 4: decision with the worst consequences for Palestinian civilian life was
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  Speaker 4: the second decision, which was that this very long list
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  Speaker 4: of Hamas militants, suspected Hamas militants, now can be bombed
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  Speaker 4: inside Syria. houses inside residential buildings. And this was done
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  Speaker 4: in a systemic way. It was done as soldiers in
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  Speaker 4: the film explained, because it is much easier to find
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  Speaker 4: someone when they are at home, when they go to
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  Speaker 4: sleep at home, when they speak to their family members,
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  Speaker 4: and we can get into that later. And for each
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  Speaker 4: one of those bombings of low-ranking Hamas militants, officers received
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  Speaker 4: a sweeping approval to kill up to 20 Palestinian civilians.
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  Speaker 4: And when you do the math in your head, when
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: you say on the one hand, there are tens of
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  Speaker 4: thousands of potential human targets that can be bombed. On
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  Speaker 4: the other hand, we are now allowed to bomb them,
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  Speaker 4: not only when they are in combat, obviously when they
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: are in combat, they could have been bombed, but when
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  Speaker 4: they are going back home to their families, with up
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  Speaker 4: to 20 civilians around them. Essentially, it's their family in
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  Speaker 4: the house and perhaps the family of the neighbors with 2,000
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  Speaker 4: pound bombs that are dropped on the building. When you
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  Speaker 4: make that part of the way the military operates, the
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  Speaker 4: inevitable result, the predetermined calculated result is going to be,
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  Speaker 4: as we've seen happen in Gaza, the wiping out of hundreds,
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: if not thousands of entire families inside their homes.
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  Speaker 1: It's what this film makes undeniable. And I really recommend
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  Speaker 1: that everybody go and see it. Yuval, I can talk
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  Speaker 1: to you about this for the full hour. I really
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  Speaker 1: do encourage people to go watch NAZA. Yuval Abraham, the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: filmmaker of NAZA and an investigative journalist. I really appreciate
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: you being here. Everybody, NAZA is currently showing in theaters
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: across the United States.
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  Speaker 3: Or just click below.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks.