The real test raised by NAZA – the Hebrew military acronym for collateral damage – is not whether its filmmakers are right. It is whether a state confident in its force is equally confident in evidence, law and institutions strong enough to examine how that force was used.

If NAZA prompts the IDF to examine allegations, remedy failures or rebut accusations with evidence, that would itself be a collateral benefit for Israel, without requiring acceptance of its filmmakers’ conclusions.

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s film, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, presents anonymous testimony from soldiers and intelligence personnel about the war in Gaza. Its creators cite those accounts as evidence of a policy of killing civilians; the IDF rejects that claim. An award does not authenticate testimony, and anonymity does not invalidate it; its weight rests on the witness’s direct knowledge, verification of their role and corroboration.

Even credible testimony about an incident does not establish state policy or intent. But the film did not prepare the ground on which such allegations now land: Israelis whose office, rank or standing carries authority abroad publicly cast harm to civilians as a means to war aims.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said of allowing two million civilians to die of hunger that “it might be justified and moral, until our hostages are returned”. Maj Gen (res.) Yiftah Ron-Tal, a former commander of the IDF Ground Forces, said that “no Gazans should remain in Gaza”.¹ Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu revived the possibility of using a nuclear bomb on Gaza previously raised by his son, Minister Amichai Eliyahu.

Their words do not prove the film’s allegations, but they give them the appearance of internal validation. In January 2024, the........

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