Movies are always sensationalized and simplified. Anonymous accusations are always problematic. But no one should understate the legal and ethical harm that Israel and the IDF now face following the launch of the NAZA film, which frames the 2023-2025 war in Gaza as a genocide.
It is not the first video footage or detailed, specific accusations against Israel.
Those have been pouring in since nearly the start of the war.
And Breaking the Silence, 972 Magazine, The New York Times, and other media have occasionally gotten Israeli soldiers on the record making accusations against the IDF.
But here are 24 (presumed) Israeli soldiers on camera (even if anonymous) from a variety of different roles, especially relating to artificial intelligence and targeting, making genocide and war crimes accusations in a film made by two Israelis.
These accusers in the NAZA film know all or many of these facts and are still making the accusations, and that is why they are so problematic for Israel legally and ethically.
Going after the IDF accusers legally will not solve any problems, because they are just adding credibility to already seriously researched allegations.
An April 2024 report by 972 Magazine and a December 2024 report by The New York Times brought some of the targeting and AI issues that NAZA seems to raise (even if without specifics) into clear contrast.
Past Israeli commission set a high threshold for proportionality
Simply stated: assuming Hamas systematically uses human shields and that the Israeli military was going to have to kill far more Gazans in this war than in prior ones in order to decisively beat Hamas militarily after the terror group’s October 7 slaughter of around 1,200 Israelis and its taking of 250 hostages, when does the ratio of terrorists to civilians in a particular attack, and as a matter of policy, violate even the most extreme interpretation of proportionality?
Can killing 100 civilians (as claimed by past media reports) or 500 civilians (as claimed by NAZA) be justified to kill even the most senior single terrorist? Can Israel say it is justified to kill 20 civilians “merely” to kill mid-level terrorists?
The 2024 New York Times report contended that the IDF assassination of senior Hamas terrorist, Jabalya Central Battalion Commander Ibrahim Biari, in late October 2023, had a 100-to-1 ratio.
According to reports – no Israeli government or IDF officials have yet been allowed to see the film – the NAZA film, without identifying a specific date or incident, sends the ratio up to the stratosphere of 500 to 1.
IDF needs clearer communication regarding AI-targeting
The IDF needs to respond to the AI targeting accusations with much more transparency both in general and to specific incidents that prior reports raised, which the NAZA film merely dramatized.
In fact, shockingly, the IDF did not put out its first report responding to specific war crimes allegation files until August 19 of this year – nearly three years after the start of the war.
The fact is that The Jerusalem Post has received repeated messages throughout the Israeli legal establishment that there was pressure from Israeli government officials to delay publications of many of the decisions.
Some of this pressure was due to the fear of government officials that portions of their constituency would hold them partially accountable for probing and prosecuting IDF soldiers, something that is very unpopular domestically.
Another source of pressure was the self-defeating concern that publicizing details of probing and prosecuting IDF officials would be used against soldiers by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Meanwhile, as former deputy attorney-general for international affairs Roy Schondorf already pointed out in May 2024, the delay in publicizing details of the probes and prosecutions is exactly one of the mistakes Israel made that allowed the ICC and ICJ to jump forward, wrongfully claiming that Israel was not probing or prosecuting anyone.
In December 2024, the Post learned from off-record IDF sources that there are no set ratios and that the IDF viewed the New York Times report message at the time that these ratios are essentially part of a factory-style free-for-all blow everyone up strategy as inaccurate.
Rather, the Post understands that the IDF’s view is that the New York Times report confused various minimal parameters, which may exist for setting at what level different senior-ranked IDF officials are mandated to sign off on certain strikes, with being the end to the process of approving or not approving a strike.
An unanswered question is whether the IDF really lived up to these standards as much at the start of the war in October-November 2023. The Post learned in December 2024 that the IDF would acknowledge that it had less time and fewer resources available to evaluate each target during that time period than in other time periods.
However, the IDF would still contend that it properly checked its targets for civilian casualties, including with multiple tools.
This last point leads into the various reports, which have also raised questions about the IDF’s target bank and AI warfare methods for incriminating some Gazans and for estimating how many civilians are nearby.
On November 16, 2023, the IDF allegedly killed dozens of members of the Malaka family, including a number of women and minors. According to the 2024 New York Times report, the IDF’s estimate of civilian harm was around 16 based on cell phone use and former records. Yet cell phone use was out, and dozens of additional people had come to shelter in the same area due to a lack of other non-bombed areas to take shelter in. Unlike earlier wars, the report said the IDF did not invest in localized resources to check if its civilian estimates were correct.
If the IDF misestimated civilians by the dozens not only this time but many times, at one point does such an error carry a new level of responsibility, potentially even criminal?
Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, documented 136 IDF strikes that it said each killed at least 15 people in October 2023 alone.
Presumably, a certain number of these people were Hamas terrorists, and the Airwars numbers may have other deficiencies, but until now, the IDF has only addressed five controversial cases with specific decisions and details, and only on August 19.
The Post has learned that the IDF’s view is that overgeneralizations that it was overly reliant on AI and cell phone tracking to determine potential civilian harm are inaccurate. But even now the IDF has continued the mistake of refusing to publicize what its other tools have been for checking potential civilian casualties.
Previously, the Post has reported that drones are regularly used to follow the status of civilians in a target area and that there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of cases where the IDF called off an attack when the drones revealed that too many civilians were in an area about to be struck.
Maybe that has been the tool that has been used to check for civilians, maybe Palestinian collaborators or pro-Israeli gangs who were revealed in 2025, or maybe Israeli special forces on the ground. But the impact that these charges are having on national security already far exceeds whatever tactical losses might come out from revealing some of Israel’s techniques for reducing civilian harm.
Viewers who applauded the NAZA film for 25 minutes at its opening probably are not going to take the time to review Israel’s detailed rebuttal. Most probably presumed Israel committed genocide before the film started.
But many fair-minded Americans and Europeans still will, and Israel and the IDF need to go into overdrive, putting out detailed responses to two- and three-year-old allegations before even those fence-sitters shut off any willingness to hear the other side of the story.
AI targeting is not only under new scrutiny in Israel but worldwide.
And Israelis, after three years of militarily defeating and clobbering enemies on all fronts, should also be ready for an honest look at instances in which individual soldiers departed from the open fire rules.
Even if most soldiers followed the rules, some will need to pay a legal price for their actions, both because that is the IDF’s values and because such accountability may yet save the Jewish state as a whole.