‘Distorted, misleading, and disingenuous’: IDF publishes full response to ‘NAZA’ film

The IDF publishes a 10-page response to the “NAZA” film, centered on allegations that Israel intentionally killed tens of thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip using artificial intelligence, among a slew of other war crimes, after finally viewing the documentary weeks after it premiered.

In its response, the military says the film “presents a distorted, misleading and disingenuous picture of the IDF’s target planning and striking process” and that the film’s narrative is “based on substantial factual errors stemming from manipulative misrepresentations of reality.”

The military says that contrary to the film’s claims, the “binding IDF directives explicitly, comprehensively and clearly distinguish between military operatives and uninvolved civilians in Gaza,” and the processes for attacks “are fundamentally based on this distinction, prohibit intentionally directing strikes against civilians, and require mitigating the possibility of harm to them to the greatest extent feasible.”

The IDF says that it “has never planned, approved or carried out any strike in Gaza in which 500 civilians or anything close to that number were expected to be killed,” an allegation brought up in the film, adding that “nor has anyone seriously alleged that an IDF strike caused deaths on that scale or anything close to it.”

On claims of using AI to select targets and approve strikes, the IDF says “artificial intelligence has never independently selected targets to strike in the IDF,” and that “the identification of targets to strike is done only by authorized intelligence officers, strikes are planned by relevant professionals, and the decision whether to strike is made by operational commanders.”

The military also says its directives “have never granted automatic authorization for strikes against targets placing a fixed number of civilians at risk,” such as 20 civilians in an attack on a junior operative or 200 civilians in an attack on a senior commander, as claimed in the film.

On Lavender, described in the film as a tool used by the IDF to identify Hamas members and recommend them for strikes, the military says that Lavender “is not a database of targets approved to strike, but a database that assists intelligence analysts.”

On claims that the IDF carried out strikes in areas after issuing evacuation warnings, even if civilians are still there, the military says that its directives “do not permit an evacuation warning for an area to be treated as authorization to carry out strikes there while disregarding civilians who remain.”

The IDF says that, contrary to claims made in the film, it “does not ignore the aftermath of its strikes but acts to assess them, including with regard to unintended civilian harm,” adding that “these assessments have prompted reviews of hundreds of incidents during the hostilities and provide a basis for lessons learned.”

“Had the filmmakers conducted adequate verification and corroboration of facts in good faith, as professional standards require, they could have identified the substantial errors presented in the film. The end result shows that they did not,” the military says.

The IDF says that many errors in the film arise because “the interviewees, described as having served in IDF intelligence roles, usually refer to only limited, initial stages dealing with intelligence, rather than the much broader process of planning and approving strikes.”

“That process is not the responsibility of intelligence, but of operational bodies that manage and carry out targeting processes. Accordingly, it is apparent that in various cases interviewees raise speculation and assumptions without a factual basis,” the military says.

The IDF accuses the filmmakers of not showing “many of the other individuals involved in the full targeting process,” including those “responsible for planning that mitigates civilian harm, legal advisers who review proposed strikes, and commanders responsible for approving or rejecting them.”

“To fit the narrative the film seeks to promote, the filmmakers also omit context essential to understanding the war in Gaza and the IDF’s conduct during it,” the military says, adding that the film “does not give due weight to Israel’s security reasons for operating in Gaza and the October 7 massacre; to Hamas’ deliberate strategy of embedding itself within the civilian population, which is the root cause of harm to civilians; or the countless actions and methods the IDF employed to mitigate civilian harm, including warnings before strikes, selection of munitions and appropriate strike planning, facilitating humanitarian aid and more.”