NAZA probe: MAG told to investigate as directors are named

Update, 16 September, 04:08 Israel time

The film's makers have now been named in reporting on the affair. A Jerusalem Post report identified the directors of "NAZA" as Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, and said they received the Special Jury Award at the Venice International Film Festival, in a photograph credited to Reuters from the festival's closing ceremony.

The same report said the chief of staff has instructed the Military Advocate General to open an investigation into the film, alongside the IDF's approach to the Shin Bet for support in the leak inquiry. That framing places a formal instruction to the Military Advocate General ahead of the position described in earlier reporting, in which a request to the Shin Bet was said to await decisions by the Military Advocate General and the Attorney General.

The Axios correspondent Barak Ravid wrote that the IDF had opened an investigation into the leak of materials to the makers of "NAZA" and had turned to the Shin Bet for assistance, adding that the service is not involved at this stage and has told the military it is waiting for a formal approach. In a follow-up post, Ravid argued that if everything in the film is false then nothing was leaked that would justify a Shin Bet investigation, and that if such an investigation is justified then the material may not be false.

Neither report names a suspect or describes the materials said to have been leaked. The directors had not responded in the material reviewed.

Update, 15 September, 20:08 Israel time

The leak inquiry ordered by the chief of staff is now drawing in Israel's internal security service. Ynet reported that figures in the IDF have approached the Shin Bet asking it to assist in investigating the affair, and that the service has made clear it is waiting for a formal, properly submitted request before it becomes involved. According to the same report, such a request would be filed only after decisions by the Military Advocate General and the Attorney General.

News.co.il, citing the military correspondent Yossi Yehoshua, reported that the approach to the Shin Bet over the leak to the film's makers was made within the past day.

The reports do not say which materials the service would be asked to examine, nor whether any individual has been identified. They also do not state a timeframe for the decisions by the Military Advocate General and the Attorney General on which a formal request is said to depend. Neither report describes the Shin Bet as having opened an investigation. The film's makers had still not responded in the material reviewed.

Update, 15 September, 14:08 Israel time

The military has now published the text of its rejection of the film's allegations. In a statement posted by the IDF on X, the military said "NAZA" has not been released in full, but that the promotional material already presents allegations about the IDF and its personnel which it called false, and in part distorted, misleading and detached from conditions on the ground. The statement described the IDF as a values driven military operating in accordance with international law.

The diplomatic arm of the response has also become public. Ynet reported that the Foreign Ministry circulated a messaging sheet to Israeli embassies describing the film as Hamas propaganda in the guise of documentary work, and rejecting its claims of genocide, mass killing and the use of artificial intelligence in targeting. The same report said the film had won an award at the Venice festival before the controversy broke in Israel, and that coverage abroad has focused as much on Israel's reaction as on the film itself, including calls to strip those involved of citizenship and criticism describing the official response as authoritarian.

A separate Ynet commentary piece argued that the military has applied more energy to contesting the documentary than to investigating suspected war crimes. The film's makers had still not responded in the material reviewed.

The story as first reported

Israel's Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, convened senior commanders on Monday for a consultation on the documentary film "NAZA", and instructed the military's chief legal officer to look at possible legal steps against the film and those involved in making it. According to the IDF spokesperson's office, the meeting included Deputy Chief of the General Staff Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai, Head of the Operations Directorate Maj. Gen. Itzik Cohen, Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir, Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Omer Tishler, the commander of Unit 8200, and IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin.

Zamir separately ordered an examination of how classified material used in the film's production reached its makers. The Times of Israel reported that the documentary contains allegations that Israel ordered artificial intelligence assisted attacks in the Gaza Strip that caused civilian deaths, and that the military has rejected the claims while stating it has not yet watched the full film, having seen only excerpts and a promotional clip released publicly. The IDF has asked for a screening so that it can respond to the allegations in their entirety.

What Zamir said

In remarks distributed after the consultation, the chief of staff described the film in unusually direct terms. "This is a move against the State of Israel, not only against the IDF," he said, adding that it "adopts the narratives of Israel's haters". He said that, based on what had been published so far, the film was not a work of criticism or an attempt to establish the truth, but rested on "blood libels", a deliberate distortion of reality and false accusations against Israeli soldiers and commanders. He said the effort sought to strip Israel of the legitimacy to defend itself and thereby endangered troops in practice.

The phrase "blood libel" carries specific weight in Jewish usage. It refers to the medieval accusation that Jews murdered Christians for ritual purposes, a charge that preceded pogroms across Europe, and it is invoked in modern Israeli political speech to describe allegations the speaker regards as both false and malicious rather than merely mistaken.

The steps ordered

N12 reported that Zamir directed a series of measures: the establishment of a multi organisational and multi disciplinary team, headed by the chief of the Planning Directorate, to counter what the military calls false claims against the IDF and its soldiers; the review of possible legal action against the film and those involved; an examination of information security aspects and of who may have been involved in leaking classified materials; and the formulation of a broad domestic and international public diplomacy effort together with the Foreign Ministry, the Justice Ministry and the national public diplomacy apparatus.

N12 also reported that Zamir told the meeting the IDF operates in accordance with international law and its own code of ethics, and that it leads efforts to reduce harm to uninvolved civilians, with what he described as a significantly lower ratio of civilian to combatant casualties than other militaries.

Who is involved

The Military Advocate General, known in Hebrew by the acronym PATZAR, is the head of the IDF's legal system and is responsible both for advising commanders on the law of armed conflict and for military prosecutions. Unit 8200 is the Israeli military's signals intelligence and cyber formation, whose commander is identified publicly only by an initial. Ynet reported that Zamir instructed the Military Advocate General to examine and advance legal measures in relation to the film and those connected to it.

Israel Hayom described the response as a leak investigation alongside a weighing of legal avenues against the film's creators.

What the reports do not say

The material does not identify the film's director, production company, distributor or intended release platform, nor does it say where or when it is to be shown. It does not specify what legal action might be available or under which law, whether criminal, civil or administrative, and no case has been opened on the basis of these reports.

The reports do not name any suspect in the leak inquiry, nor do they describe what classified materials are said to have been used. The Times of Israel liveblog and the military correspondent Emanuel Fabian both note testimonies from purported Israeli intelligence personnel, but the accounts available here are truncated and the number and identity of those speakers cannot be stated with confidence. The film's makers had not responded in any of the material reviewed, and no independent verification of the documentary's claims, or of the military's rejection of them, is available.