Naza

On the rooftops of Tel Aviv, far from the war zone, Israeli soldiers hold secret late-night conversations. Step by step, it reveals how the military and intelligence services determine who is a target, which technologies and procedures are deployed, and how many civilian casualties an attack is allowed to cost. Tens, sometimes hundreds of Palestinian civilians can be deemed an acceptable price for taking out a single target. Naza thus poses the painful question: how can the killing of innocent civilians become so normalised within a military machine that it's no longer seen as a moral or legal problem?

The title refers to Nezek Agavi, 'collateral damage', the Israeli military term for the expected number of civilian casualties in an airstrike. The term symbolises the dehumanisation baked deep into the system: civilian deaths aren't a tragic side-effect, but a foreseen and accepted part of military operations.

Naza, by filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (No Other Land), premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize.