IDF said advancing plans to release film of Hamas Oct. 7 atrocities to combat ‘NAZA’ fallout

The Israel Defense Forces is advancing plans to publish its 47-minute compilation of footage of the Hamas-led October 7 massacre to combat the fallout of “NAZA,” an Israeli-made documentary alleging that the military killed civilians in Gaza using AI-powered strikes, Channel 12 reports.

According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the defense establishment are on board with the plans and are figuring out how to publish the footage.

The Foreign Ministry is considering a number of methods, such as showing the footage through its embassies or publishing it on social media, according to the report.

It is also weighing whether to publish it in full or in three parts, each around 15 minutes long, the report says.

Up until now, the film was only shown in closed-door sessions.

The footage was collected from call recordings, security cameras, Hamas terrorists’ body cameras, victim dashboard cameras, Hamas and victims’ social media accounts, and cellphone videos taken by terrorists, victims, and first responders. Around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were slaughtered by the terrorists, and 251 people were abducted.

The 80-minute film by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor — whose title is a Hebrew acronym meaning collateral damage — claims to explore AI-powered strikes by Israel in the Gaza Strip that it alleges have led to civilian deaths, including testimonies from 24 purported Israeli intelligence soldiers. The film won a special jury prize last week at the Venice Film Festival, where it debuted.

Testimony in the film alleges “mass killing on an industrial scale” in Gaza, one of the officers said in a series of anonymous interviews, describing an AI-assisted system that identified targets using data gathered from thousands of hacked mobile phones. Israel rejects the premise of the film, and says it has gone to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields in densely populated areas — a claim Hamas denies.

Last Friday — a day after the film’s premiere at the festival and a day before it won the prize — the IDF issued a statement saying that it “categorically rejects” allegations made in the documentary and criticizing the use of anonymous testimonies.

The IDF also said decisions on the selection and approval of strikes were made “by human personnel only… and not by artificial intelligence.”