A new documentary exposing the inner workings of Israel's AI-assisted killing systems in Gaza has received a nearly 25-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere — reportedly the longest sustained applause ever recorded at a major film festival. The film, NAZA, directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, screened on Thursday as the only documentary competing for the festival's prestigious Golden Lion award. Some audience members held up Palestinian flags as the applause continued and executive producer Jonathan Glazer embraced the directors on stage.
The 80-minute film is the result of a three-year investigation drawing on testimony from 24 Israeli military and intelligence insiders, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Interviews were conducted at night on Tel Aviv rooftops, with the subjects' voices and faces digitally altered. The insiders describe in detail an AI-assisted targeting system known as "Lavender", which drew on Gaza's monitored telecommunications network — phone calls, movements, and social interactions — to generate lists of assassination targets, who were then bombed in their homes at night. The film's title is itself drawn from a Hebrew military acronym used euphemistically to refer to the number of civilians expected to die in a given strike. One interviewee described the targeting process as operating "like a factory"; another called it "like a video game" and "insanely fun". The film also documents the destruction of neighbourhoods where the military estimated up to 25% of residents were still sheltering, the systematic burning of civilian homes, and killings at a food distribution site.
Abraham and Szor — two of the four co-directors of No Other Land, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2025 for its portrait of Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank — said in their directors' statement that the film was made "out of a sense of obligation" to examine the systems behind what they described as mass killing. They said the film's focus was not on rogue behaviour but on official orders, accepted practices, and the institutional logic enabling them. In a joint essay, the directors concluded that civilian deaths in Gaza were "not a tragic byproduct of a war against Hamas, but a premeditated, calculated, and intentional act". Several interviewees reportedly showed no remorse; one described their unit's mission as being to "thwart peace".
NAZA was produced by James Wilson and executive produced by Glazer — the same team behind The Zone of Interest, the 2024 Oscar winner for best international feature — and co-produced with The Guardian, whose investigative reporting on Israeli military systems in Gaza underpins much of the film's findings. Venice's artistic director Alberto Barbera, who previewed the film before its premiere, called it "truly groundbreaking" and said the testimonies were "shocking". Trade publications were similarly unsparing: Screen International described it as an "urgent, gut-punch", while The Hollywood Reporter said it inspired "outrage" and "profound disgust".
The Gaza conflict began with the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, in which more than 1,200 people in Israel were killed and 251 taken hostage, the majority of them civilians. Israeli military operations in Gaza since then have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 174,000, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health — together representing more than 10% of Gaza's pre-war population. Foreign journalists have been barred from entering Gaza except under tightly controlled conditions with the Israeli military. Abraham said at a Venice press conference that he hoped the film would pressure Western governments to reconsider their support for Israel, warning that inaction was undermining those inside Israel and Palestine who were working for human rights and a political solution.