Expatriate, spit on, hang: How Israel wants to silence Abraham and Szor

Twenty-four Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers recounted at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv how their army in Gaza counted entire families as planned targets and how software dispensed the suggested targets. The two Israelis who filmed this received a 25-minute standing ovation in Venice. Back home, the mob is already hanging a noose around their necks—for now, only in images. Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor deserve no distancing, no "yes, but," and no categorization. They deserve unconditional solidarity.

NAZA: The abbreviation for the planned mountain of corpses

The film's title isn't a stylistic choice, but rather official jargon. NAZA, used by the Israeli intelligence service, refers to the number of civilians expected to die in an airstrike . Those interviewed describe the AI ​​system "Lavender," which calculated targets based on phone calls and movement data. One person speaks of a factory, another of a video game that is "incredibly fun." One source describes the authorization to kill 500 civilians for a single Hamas fighter . Anyone wanting to know where AI as an executioner's assistant is headed has found the prototype here.

The army denies everything. They call the witnesses low-ranking soldiers with no insight and insist that decisions about beatings are made exclusively by humans. No one is allowed to verify this, because foreign journalists are only permitted into the area under military supervision. A truth that cannot be witnessed is easy to defend.

The mob in front of the parents' house

On September 16, dozens of people gathered in front of Szor's parents' house in Savyon, chanting "Death penalty for traitors." They were led by the far-right provocateur Mordechai David, who announced he would "hunt them down" across the country . The adverbial "hunt" is the fig leaf of a witch hunt. David, considered an ally of Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir , promised this was just the beginning. Activist Ziv Baranes called for another siege of the family home . Ben-Gvir himself shared an AI video showing the two behind bars. For Abraham, this is a repeat: A mob had already gathered in front of his family's house in Beersheba after his speech at the Berlinale in 2024.

Former Hamas hostage Eliya Cohen demanded that the two directors' faces be plastered on posters and across all media . He even called for them to be spat on in the street. He spent 505 days in captivity; his anger is understandable. His claim that the film used extras instead of witnesses remained just that: a claim. A post from the New York Film Festival attracted threats like "Yuval, don't come back" and the derogatory term "Kapo ." A montage circulating on X shows both directors with nooses around their heads, accompanied by the demand that they be hanged in "Gaza Square." In Ashdod, their faces are plastered on a wall, next to the word "traitor" and red targets . Overnight, someone wrote "heroes" over them. A single brushstroke of decency against a wall covered in crosshairs.

The government provides the stamp

The mob is not acting on its own behalf. Culture Minister Miki Zohar called the film treason. He wants to revoke the citizenship of the two journalists and has unleashed the domestic intelligence service on the anonymous sources . Benjamin Netanyahu followed up with two laws: one to strip all those who "defame" soldiers of their citizenship, and another with twenty times the damages. They will be hit in the wallet and stripped of their citizenship , because their place is not with us. Just weeks before the election, the stripping of journalists' citizenship apparently sells better than addressing the past. Abraham had already predicted this in Venice: the aim is to prevent any discussion about the crimes committed and to silence those who speak out about them. The government has confirmed this daily ever since.

President Isaac Herzog called the film a disgrace. He considered denaturalization futile , however , and advised the witnesses to contact their commanders—the very same authority that, according to the film, signed off on the releases. Challenger Gadi Eisenkot and Democratic leader Yair Golan also condemned the film . Those seeking unity in the election campaign are finding it in hatred of two filmmakers whose film has barely been seen in the country.

The troublemakers have fellow nestmates

At least not all of Israel is marching along. Forty-three Israeli human rights organizations and over a thousand filmmakers rallied behind the two directors, calling the state's reaction typical of dictatorial regimes . The journalists' union condemned the threats. The directors themselves asked all distributors not to screen the film on October 6, 7, and 8 , because they feared for the safety of their audience. Those who act this way are not playing with fire. They are protecting people from those who threaten them with suicide.

And no, this is not antisemitism. Anyone who levels this accusation against two Israelis who listen to their own soldiers is burning the term to ashes. Abraham and Szor are in the same category as all those who are considered worse than any antisemite because they come from within the community and yet still look the other way.

The traitor is the one who reads the minutes aloud.

The statements of all 24 witnesses were denied, and not a single one has been refuted. Instead, those who reported them are being attacked. That is the whole truth of this affair, and it's not in a film, but on a wall in Ashdod. In Venice, there was 25 minutes of applause; in Savyon, two nights of calls for the death penalty. Those who call their fellow citizens "Kapo" for documenting war crimes have only retained the scorn of the word. A state that wants to strip journalists of their citizenship because they listened to its soldiers hasn't lost press freedom; it has buried it itself. And every noose some demagogue draws around their necks is the most honest seal of approval this film will ever receive!