Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar vowed on Sunday to revoke the citizenship of filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor after their Gaza documentary NAZA won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, accusing the directors of treason and harming the state for international acclaim.
Miki Zohar Responds to NAZA at the Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival victory of the 80-minute documentary NAZA has ignited an immediate political and legal clash inside Israel. Following the film’s premiere, which drew a standing ovation lasting 25 minutes, Culture Minister Miki Zohar took to social media to denounce the project and target its creators. In a post on US social media company X, Zohar described the film’s victory as “shocking” and the documentary as “vile,” accusing its creators of harming their country to win applause abroad and saying their actions constitute treason against the state.
The documentary examines artificial intelligence-powered military systems and protocols used to bombard Gaza, drawing on testimony from 24 different Israeli military or intelligence whistleblowers who outlined the AI-powered targeting systems that have killed tens of thousands of civilians.
Venice Accolades and Inside the Documentary’s Revelations
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor Direct NAZA
The film is named for an acronym used by Israel’s intelligence service to indicate how many civilians it expects to die in an airstrike on Gaza. Co-directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor—who won an Oscar in 2025 for No Other Land, a documentary on Israeli settler pogroms in the occupied West Bank, made with Palestinian co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal—the project is the result of a nearly three-year investigation. Interviewees in the film spoke on the condition that their identities be concealed, with their voices and faces digitally altered and filmed at night on Tel Aviv rooftops.
We are letting the soldiers and the officers speak about what they did,
Abraham told the AFP news agency. In one interview in the documentary, a source claims that approval had been given to kill 500 NAZA in order to kill one Hamas member. Produced by the Guardian, NAZA details systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing
of Palestinian civilians in Gaza according to its official synopsis, receiving overwhelming acclaim and setting a festival record at the Venice Film Festival.
Ministerial Threats and Legal Realities of Citizenship Revocation
Miki Zohar Announces Plans to Initiate Revocation Proceedings
Reaction from Israeli officials was swift and severe. Minister Zohar announced plans to initiate revocation proceedings against both directors, writing: As culture minister, I will act immediately to revoke the Israeli citizenship of these despicable creators for treason against the state.
Zohar also linked the controversy to his recent reforms of government funding for the Israeli film industry, stating: This is exactly the reason I led the important reform in cinema so that Israeli citizens will no longer have to pay out of their own pockets for the harm to IDF soldiers and the State of Israel.
Zohar further accused the directors of being willing to harm their homeland in order to receive applause from anti-Semites around the world.
Other Israeli ministers also took aim at the directors. Despite these declarations, the culture minister does not possess unilateral authority to revoke Israeli citizenship. Under Israeli law, citizenship revocation on grounds of disloyalty is subject to a formal legal process involving the interior minister and the courts.
Broader Repercussions and Distribution Plans
The Venice Film Festival Success Continues to Reverberate Internationally
Zohar denounced the film as “vile” and accused its creators of harming Israel to win international approval, characterizing their work as treason—an allegation that has not been established through judicial proceedings. As the documentary’s success at the Venice Film Festival continues to reverberate internationally, attention turns to whether formal government filings will materialize and how domestic legal authorities will handle the political pressure facing the award-winning creators.
