NAZA, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by The Guardian, presents serious allegations concerning the Israeli military’s targeting procedures and the expected civilian toll of strikes in Gaza. This article does not argue that Israel is innocent, nor does it dismiss the suffering of Palestinian civilians. It questions something different: whether a work presented as investigative journalism has actually subjected its own thesis to the level of verification, contextualization, corroboration and adversarial scrutiny that such serious allegations require. It examines the documentary’s anonymous sources, the distinction between testimony and proof, the strategic context of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Hamas’s military infrastructure within Gaza, the role of Iran, Egypt’s policies toward Palestinians fleeing Gaza, the treatment of activists attempting to reach Rafah, the legal and practical status of Gazans in Egypt, and the broader question of whether a documentary can legitimately claim to reveal a system of deliberate civilian targeting without fully establishing the chain of evidence connecting individual testimony to that conclusion.
NAZA may be correct. But what exactly does its evidence establish? What is independently corroborated? What is inferred by the filmmakers? And what evidence would allow the audience to distinguish between the two?
The distinction matters because the absence of publicly presented corroboration is not the same as proof that corroboration does not exist”.
Reading the way L’Espresso presents NAZA — and, from a certain point of view, the way other newspapers and magazines have presented it as well — the question that keeps returning is whether the documentary sufficiently distinguishes between what its sources establish and what the filmmakers infer from those sources.
That distinction is not semantic. It is the difference between reporting what the evidence establishes and asking the audience to accept an interpretation that goes beyond it.
The central methodological question is therefore not whether the film contains credible testimony. It is whether the evidentiary chain connecting that testimony to its broader conclusions is sufficiently transparent
A serious investigation should allow the reader to distinguish between five different levels:
- Fact: what can independently be established.
- Testimony: what a source says happened.
- Corroboration: what independent evidence confirms, qualifies or contradicts that testimony.
- Inference: what the filmmakers conclude from the available evidence.
- Conclusion: the broader proposition that the investigation asks the audience to accept.
- Confidence: how strongly the available evidence supports that conclusion.
The broader and more consequential the conclusion, the stronger, more independent and more transparent that chain must be.
This because no one disputes the right to tell the story of Palestinian civilian victims. No one can dispute the right to investigate the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces, to challenge its procedures, to seek possible criminal responsibility and to demand accountability for every civilian death. But precisely because the allegations are enormous, the rigor with which they are demonstrated must be equally enormous. And this is where the problems begin.
The thesis of NAZA is not simply that too many civilians have died in Gaza. It is much more serious than that. The film seeks to show that behind Israeli military operations there exists a targeting system in which civilian deaths are not merely an anticipated consequence of military operations, but have been deliberately incorporated into the decision-making process.
That is an enormous accusation, and its validity cannot be established merely by accumulating testimonies, images and numbers. What matters is the quality of those sources, their independence, their corroboration, and the evidentiary relationship between them and the conclusion being drawn.
The logical connection between each of those elements and the final conclusion must be demonstrated. The procedures described by the sources must be shown to have operated exactly as represented. The individual testimonies must be tested. The precise role of each source must be established. What is said must be checked against documents, independent testimony, data and alternative sources. Above all, an investigation must actively look for evidence capable of disproving its own hypothesis.
Because that is what distinguishes an investigation from an indictment.
And this is where NAZA begins to show its methodological vulnerabilities.
The film itself presents 24 anonymized military and intelligence insiders. The filmmakers have subsequently stated that they spoke with more than 100 people in the course of their reporting. That distinction matters. So does another one: anonymity, by itself, does not invalidate a source. Investigative journalism has always used anonymous sources. The real question is what the journalists did to verify them.
And here a distinction is essential: what the audience is shown is not necessarily identical to what the journalists possess. The methodological question is therefore not whether every piece of corroborating evidence was published, but whether the evidence presented to the audience is sufficient to justify the conclusions the film asks it to draw.
If the audience is not given enough information to understand the precise role of a source, the extent of that person’s knowledge, their proximity to the decision-making chain, and what independent evidence corroborates their account, the problem is not political.
It is methodological, and this is precisely the question that should be asked of NAZA: where does testimony end and the filmmakers’ interpretation begin?
One thing is to say thar “An Israeli military or intelligence source claims that…”, and another one is to conclude that “This proves that Israel established a system designed for the deliberate killing of civilians” because that transition is not automatic, but must be demonstrated.
And the more serious the accusation, the more rigorous the demonstration must be.
But there is an even larger problem: context
October 7, 2023, did not occur in a vacuum.
Hamas had spent years building a military infrastructure in Gaza. Reporting by The Washington Post has documented an extensive underground war machine, including tunnel networks, weapons storage and underground manufacturing facilities. The reporting also describes preparations that Hamas leaders said had been underway for years rather than merely months.
So a question should be unavoidable for anyone claiming to investigate the war:
- “What strategic objective did Hamas’s leadership believe it could achieve?”
- “Why spend years preparing an operation that would predictably provoke an enormous Israeli military response?”
- “What did Hamas expect to obtain?”
- “What strategic calculation stood behind the October 7 attack?”
- “And why did Hamas invest so heavily in military infrastructure beneath and among one of the most densely populated territories on earth without simultaneously constructing an equivalent network of protected civilian shelters?”
Five fundamental questions that can be summarized by the fundamental one:
“What did Israeli commanders know about Hamas’s military infrastructure, and how did that knowledge affect the targeting decisions examined by NAZA?”
This is not a pro-Israel question. It is a question about the evidentiary conditions under which Israeli military decisions can be assessed. The presence of Hamas’s military infrastructure does not by itself justify civilian harm, but it may be materially relevant to questions of military objective, intelligence, precautions, proportionality and anticipated civilian harm..
The existence and location of Hamas’s military infrastructure is not a justification for civilian harm. It is, however, a potentially relevant variable when assessing what Israeli forces knew, what military objective they identified, what precautions they considered, and how they assessed anticipated civilian harm.
But the opposite is equally true: a serious investigation cannot simply erase or minimize the existence, nature, and scale of Hamas’s military infrastructure. To do so would mean omitting a potentially crucial element of the context in which Israeli military decisions were made, and continue to be made. A credible investigation must examine this infrastructure, how it was used and, where possible, how it is still being used, as well as the influence it has had and continues to have on the conduct of hostilities, and what Israeli forces knew about it at the time of the initial attack and what they still know today.
Ignoring these questions does not mean being neutral. It means introducing an omission that risks producing an incomplete and potentially misleading account of the events.
Anyone genuinely interested in understanding what happened, as well as the methodological choices made by the two Israeli filmmakers, should therefore be willing to address these questions rather than dismiss them as pro-Israel propaganda. A serious investigation has to examine it.
United Nations reporting has documented allegations and evidence concerning the use of civilian areas and structures for military purposes by Palestinian armed groups, including claims concerning residential buildings, hospitals, mosques and schools. The same UN material also makes clear that individual Israeli claims must themselves be assessed and substantiated
That is precisely the point: the existence of military activity in or around civilian infrastructure does not automatically prove every allegation made by Israel, but it establishes a factual issue that requires investigation.
And yet, too often, the entire question is reduced to a sentence: “Israel claims that Hamas uses civilians as human shields.”
No. That is not an investigation. That is merely repeating one party’s statement.
An investigation should establish what happened, where it happened, what evidence exists, what the military objective was, whether civilians were present, whether precautions were taken, what Hamas was doing in the area, what the Israeli military knew at the time, and what alternative explanations exist. And above all, it should investigate evidence capable of undermining the hypothesis from which it began.
And Iran?
Here too, the picture is considerably more complicated than a binary narrative suggests.
On October 10, 2023, the U.S. State Department stated that it had no information showing that Iran had directed or orchestrated the October 7 attacks, while saying that Iran likely knew Hamas was planning operations but apparently did not have precise knowledge of the timing or scope. The United States also emphasized that Iran had long provided material and financial support to Hamas.
The subsequent U.S. State Department terrorism report likewise stated that there was no evidence that Iran knew about the October 7 attack in advance, while stressing Iran’s longstanding weapons, financial and training support for Hamas.
These facts do not exonerate Iran, do not exonerate Hamas, and certainly do not exonerate Israel, but they complicate the narrative. And that is precisely what an investigation is supposed to do.
Complicate. Not simplify.
The following issues are not presented as evidence disproving NAZA’s central allegations. Their relevance is contextual: they concern the broader circumstances affecting Gaza’s civilian population and the constraints surrounding movement in and out of the territory.
And Egypt?
Here we reach one of the questions that apparently makes people particularly uncomfortable:
- Why did Egypt refuse a mass opening of its border for the permanent or large-scale transfer of Gaza’s population into Sinai?
- Why did Egypt, together with Jordan and other Arab states, reject the idea of a mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza?
The reasons publicly given by Cairo included fears that temporary displacement could become permanent, concerns about destabilizing Sinai, security considerations, and the broader political principle that Palestinians should not be permanently displaced from Gaza. Egypt has also hosted large refugee populations and has argued that the solution should be a Palestinian state rather than another wave of displacement.
One may agree with those reasons or disagree with them, but they are part of the context, and the context matters because there is another extraordinary episode that deserves to be mentioned.
In June 2025, thousands of international activists attempted to reach Rafah as part of the Global March to Gaza, an initiative intended to draw attention to the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Egyptian authorities stopped foreign participants en route to Sinai, detained and deported dozens of people, and required travel to the Rafah border area to be coordinated in advance with Egyptian authorities. Reuters reported that at least 88 people had been detained or deported and that dozens were deported from Cairo.
Participants also reported that passports were confiscated at checkpoints. Al Jazeera reported that organizers said 40 participants had had their passports taken, while participants described being ordered to hand over their passports and being prevented from continuing toward Rafah.
And the Maghreb land convoy known as Soumoud, which had departed Tunisia with participants from Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Mauritania, was stopped in Libya near Sirte by forces controlling eastern Libya before it could continue toward Egyptian territory. The Tunisian Press Agency reported that the convoy was prevented from proceeding toward the Salloum border crossing.
Again: these facts do not establish that Egypt or Libya bears the same responsibility as Israel for the war in Gaza, nevertheless they establish something else and in particular that
the movement of people toward Gaza was also constrained by regional governments and security authorities.
These facts do not alter the evidentiary question at the heart of NAZA. They do, however, illustrate why the broader context surrounding Gaza’s civilian population should not be reduced to the conduct of one actor alone.
The Palestinians who reached Egypt
And here another simplification needs to be challenged.
It is not accurate to say that Palestinians who escaped Gaza simply “entered Egypt” and were therefore safe. For many of those who managed to leave Gaza after October 7, Egypt became a legal and practical limbo, and it would be very interesting to understand the reason of such a choice.
Reuters reported in May 2024 that the Palestinian embassy in Cairo was seeking temporary residency permits for tens of thousands of Gazans who had entered Egypt during the war. According to the Palestinian ambassador, as many as 100,000 Gazans had entered Egypt, many without the documentation needed to enroll children in school, open businesses or bank accounts, travel normally or obtain health insurance.
The New Humanitarian subsequently reported that many Palestinians from Gaza possessed only Gaza-issued identification documents and that these documents prevented them from working in most jobs, enrolling children in schools, opening businesses or bank accounts, travelling freely or obtaining health insurance. The main thing that whoever wants to understand the way the Gazans are considered in the region is that the article here mentioned (article entitled “Escaping Gaza’s war, Palestinians find little solace in Egypt – ‘We need official papers, and support to navigate these obstacles and ensure a better future for our children’) has been written by Mohammed Mhawis, an Award-winning Palestinian multimedia journalist and writer from Gaza City.
The European Council on Refugees and Exiles’ Asylum Information Database likewise reports that Palestinians face barriers in the Egyptian labor market, including exclusion from public-sector employment and security-related barriers in the private sector. It also documents the precarious status of Palestinians evacuated from Gaza after October 7 who were granted temporary 45-day residence permits but were subsequently left without regularized legal status, affecting access to essential services and freedom of movement.
So let us be precise.
I am not claiming that Egypt has a simple, universal law saying “Palestinians are forbidden to work.” The documented reality is more complicated and, in some respects, more revealing. The problem is status. A person who has escaped a war zone but lacks stable legal residence may be physically outside the battlefield while remaining trapped in legal uncertainty, with serious consequences for employment, education, movement, banking and healthcare.
That is also part of the story of Gaza’s civilians, so the question is: “Why is it so rarely included in the broader narrative?”
And then there is the money
There is another issue that deserves scrutiny: the system through which Palestinians were able to obtain permission to leave Gaza through Rafah.
NPR investigated the role of the Egyptian company Hala and documented a system in which Palestinians paid very large sums to secure permission to leave. On March 1, 2024, NPR estimated that around 400 Palestinian travelers who crossed that day had paid approximately $1.3 million in total. It documented cases involving payments of thousands of dollars, including one family that reportedly paid $17,000 to leave Gaza.
The Egyptian government has denied that it officially imposed such fees. That distinction is important: evidence of payments to an intermediary is not, by itself, evidence of an official Egyptian policy or state-imposed fee. What it establishes is the existence of a system through which money could become a practical condition of exit for some people. That does not make the phenomenon irrelevant. It makes it a subject for investigation.
Again:
- “Where is the investigation into what happened to Palestinians once they crossed the Egyptian border?”
- “Where is the investigation into their legal status?”
- “Where is the investigation into their access to employment?”
- “Where is the investigation into their ability to move freely?”
- Where is the investigation into the system through which some Palestinians paid thousands of dollars to leave Gaza?”
- “Where is the investigation into the role of intermediaries in facilitating their departure?”
- “Where is the investigation into the decision by Egypt to prevent international activists from reaching Rafah?”
These are not anti-Palestinian questions. They are questions about Palestinians. And precisely because they concern Palestinians, they deserve to be asked.
Obviously none of these facts disproves NAZA’s allegations, even if their relevance is narrower: they illustrate how selective contextualization can shape an audience’s understanding of Gaza’s civilian population and the constraints surrounding movement in and out of the territory.
And then we come back to L’Espresso (and the others)
This is where the issue becomes, in my view, even more serious because L’Espresso does not merely present the film. It largely adopts its narrative perspective. The language used to describe the IDF’s response is already revealing. The Israeli military statement is described as bureaucratic, full of adverbs and constructed to reduce the film’s “revelations” to mistaken interpretations. The film, by contrast, is presented as though it had already produced a revelation.
But journalism should remember something fundamental: a bureaucratic response is not therefore false, and a powerfully constructed film is not therefore true.
Truth is not measured by tone. It is measured by evidence.
The IDF says its directives distinguish between combatants and civilians, prohibit intentionally directing attacks against civilians and require measures to reduce civilian harm. The IDF has also disputed key allegations made by the film, including the claim that it approved a strike anticipating 500 civilian deaths.
These claims may be true. They may be false. They may be partly true. But they must be investigated, not ridiculed.
The same standard must apply in the opposite direction. An allegation does not become true because it is made by an insider, but an official denial does not become true merely because it comes from the military either. Both claims require evidence.”
The journalist’s task is not to choose which side to believe in advance, but to establish what can be verified, what remains disputed, what evidence supports each position, and how much confidence the available evidence warrants.
The 500 civilians question
There is one allegation so serious that it makes the methodological question even more obvious.
The film presents the claim that an attack could have been approved with an anticipated civilian toll of up to 500 people for the killing of a single Hamas operative. The Guardian’s account of the film presents this as one of its central allegations. But reporting critical of the film has noted that the allegation is supported in the documentary by the testimony of a single interviewee without additional supporting material being shown to the audience.
Very well: if it is true, we are dealing with something extraordinarily grave, but precisely for that reason, the evidentiary foundation must be extraordinarily strong.
What is alleged?
Who makes the allegation?
What was that person’s role?
What did they personally know?
What independent evidence corroborates it?
What does the IDF dispute?
What evidence would allow the audience to resolve the dispute?
Without that information, the appropriate conclusion may be that the allegation is serious and potentially credible, while the degree of confidence warranted by the publicly available evidence remains uncertain.
The issue, therefore, is not whether the allegation is shocking. It is whether the evidence presented to the audience is sufficient to move from testimony to an independently verifiable conclusion.
And no, this does not mean that Israel is innocent…
…Nor does this article assume that the IDF’s account is correct. The same evidentiary discipline must be applied to its explanations, denials and alternative accounts.
Let me be absolutely clear.
- I am not saying that Israel is right.
- I am not saying that civilian victims are a detail.
- I am not saying that crimes have not been committed.
- I am not saying that every IDF operation was lawful.
- I am not saying that every IDF statement should be believed.
I am saying something much more elementary: allegations must be demonstrated, and they must be demonstrated with the same rigor that we would demand for any other serious allegation.
Because if we begin from the assumption that an anonymous testimony is true because it confirms the thesis, that an image proves whatever we claim it represents, that the number of dead automatically establishes the intention of the people who carried out the bombing, and that every response from the accused side is merely propaganda, then the work risks moving from investigation toward advocacy, because the evidentiary standard is being applied selectively rather than consistently., and advocacy can be legitimate, but it is not investigative journalism.
The real question
I do not challenge NAZA’s right to accuse Israel. I challenge the right of those who present NAZA as a major investigative work to exempt it from the fundamental rules of investigation, because a serious investigation must have the courage to ask questions capable of destroying its own thesis.
It must search for contradictory evidence, must investigate omissions, must verify sources, must make its inferences transparent, must distinguish fact from testimony, testimony from interpretation, interpretation from conclusion, and above all, it must tell the context even when the context is uncomfortable.
If it does not, it is no longer searching for the truth, but only for confirmation. And this is where, frankly, I find the way in which this story is being presented deeply unworthy of serious journalism.
Of course that is not necessarily evidence of bad faith. It is, however, a reason to demand a higher level of transparency from publications presenting the documentary as an investigative revelation, because journalism should not tell us who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. It should give us the tools with which to judge. It should not tell us which questions we are allowed to ask. It should have the courage to ask all of them.
Even the uncomfortable ones. Even the questions that make people angry. Even the questions that threaten the dominant narrative. And this because when a question is treated as an inconvenience rather than as an opportunity for verification, the problem is no longer the question.
The problem is an information system that could be read as afraid of the answer, and so the final question is very simple: Is NAZA an investigation that has demonstrated a thesis — or is it a thesis that has been given the format of an investigation?
After examining the available material, the documentary itself, the filmmakers’ explanations, the IDF’s response, and the criticisms concerning sourcing and verification, I continue to have serious questions, and I believe that L’Espresso, as well as all the other newspapers and magazines that have faced the thing in the same way , before presenting this film as a revelation, should have had at least as many.
The strongest investigative work does not merely accumulate evidence supporting its hypothesis. It identifies what evidence could falsify that hypothesis and actively searches for it.
The relevant question is therefore not simply what evidence NAZA found, but what evidence the filmmakers sought that might have proved their interpretation wrong.
What would change my mind?
What evidence would change my assessment?”
Documents establishing the relevant targeting directives; corroborating testimony from independent participants in the same decision-making process; contemporaneous operational records; evidence establishing the chain of command; or independent evidence confirming that the practices described by individual sources were systematic rather than exceptional.
Evidence capable of falsifying the interpretation advanced by the filmmakers would be equally relevant.
If such evidence exists and has been independently verified, the criticism advanced in this article should be revised accordingly. Conversely, if the available evidence does not support the broader conclusion, the appropriate response is not to dismiss the underlying allegations, but to state more precisely what the evidence does and does not establish.
Conclusion
The question, therefore, is not whether NAZA is entitled to accuse Israel. It plainly is. Nor is the question whether the allegations it presents could be true. They could be, and if independently substantiated they would demand the most serious scrutiny.
The narrower and more consequential question is whether the evidence made available to the audience is sufficient to establish the documentary’s broader conclusions, rather than merely to support them.
That distinction matters.
A documentary can contain credible sources, genuine revelations and important evidence, while still leaving unanswered questions about corroboration, representativeness, causation and inference.
Those questions do not exonerate Israel. They do not invalidate the testimony of the sources. They do not diminish the suffering of Palestinian civilians.
They are simply the questions that an investigative work of this magnitude must survive.
that leaves the central issue unresolved: has NAZA demonstrated its thesis — or has it presented a compelling body of evidence from which its thesis is still an inference?
Until that distinction is made explicit, the appropriate response is neither dismissal nor acceptance. That standard applies equally to allegations, denials, explanations and counter-explanations.
It is verification.
Bibliography
- The Guardian, Xan Brooks, “‘They know the house they are bombing is full of children’: NAZA’s directors on their devastating film about Israeli intelligence,” September 11, 2026. The filmmakers’ account of the 24 anonymized insiders and the documentary’s central allegations.
- The Guardian, “NAZA filmmakers say they spoke to more than 100 sources about Israeli actions in Gaza,” October 1, 2026. Important for distinguishing the 24 sources appearing in the film from the broader pool of people reportedly interviewed by the filmmakers.
- The New Yorker, “NAZA Puts Israel Face to Face with the War in Gaza,” September 2026. Background on the documentary and its use of anonymized Israeli military and intelligence sources.
- Times of Israel, Emanuel Fabian and Nurit Yohanan, “NAZA’s claims about IDF conduct in Gaza are grave. So are the film’s journalistic flaws,” September 27, 2026. Critical examination of sourcing, corroboration and the documentary’s major allegations.
- Jerusalem Post, Ido Lazari, “Journalism has always had anonymous sources, but how did NAZA filmmakers check theirs?,” September 16, 2026. Discussion of anonymous sources and the distinction between anonymity and verification.
- U.S. Department of State, press briefing, October 10, 2023. Contemporary U.S. assessment concerning Iranian knowledge or direction of the October 7 attack.
- U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2023 — Iran. Subsequent assessment of Iranian support for Hamas and the absence of evidence that Iran knew of the October 7 attack in advance.
- Washington Post, Joby Warrick and Loveday Morris, “Hamas built an underground war machine to ensure its own survival,” October 5, 2024. Reporting on Hamas’s tunnel network, weapons production and long-term military preparations.
- United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, reports concerning military operations in Gaza and the use of civilian structures by Palestinian armed groups.
- Reuters, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Aidan Lewis, “Palestinian Embassy seeks temporary status for Gazans who entered Egypt during war,” May 2, 2024. Documentation of the legal and practical difficulties faced by Gazans in Egypt.
- The New Humanitarian, “Escaping Gaza’s war, Palestinians find little solace in Egypt,” July 1, 2024. Documentation concerning employment, education, banking, travel and healthcare restrictions arising from Palestinians’ documentation status in Egypt.
- European Council on Refugees and Exiles / AIDA, Egypt country report. Documentation of Palestinian access to the labor market, temporary residence after October 7, freedom of movement and legal uncertainty.
- NPR, “Palestinians fleeing Gaza for Egypt pay thousands to Egyptian broker,” March 2, 2024. Investigation of Hala and payments made by Palestinians seeking to leave Gaza through Rafah.
- Reuters, “Egypt deports dozens more foreign nationals heading for march to Gaza,” June 13, 2025. Documentation concerning the Global March to Gaza, detentions and deportations by Egypt.
- Al Jazeera, “Egypt, Libya stop activists gathering for March to Gaza,” June 13, 2025. Documentation of passport confiscations and the stopping of the Soumoud convoy near Sirte.
- Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP), “Soumoud Convoy halted in Sirte,” June 17, 2025. Documentation of the convoy’s attempted passage toward the Egyptian border and its detention near Sirte.
- Associated Press, “Why Egypt and other Arab countries are unwilling to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza.” Background on Egypt and Jordan’s opposition to mass displacement from Gaza.
- Presidency of Egypt, Cairo Statement of the Extraordinary Arab Summit. Official Arab position against displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
Sources:
3 https://2021-2025.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-october-10-2023/?safe=1
4 https://www.ecoi.net/en/document/2118997.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
5 https://apnews.com/article/palestinian-jordan-egypt-israel-refugee-502c06d004767d4b64848d878b66bd3d
8 https://www.tap.info.tn/en/Portal-Top-News-EN/18896246–soumoud-convoy?utm_source=chatgpt.com
11 https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/authors/mohammed-mhawish
13 https://www.npr.org/2024/03/02/1234439113/palestinians-leave-gaza-egypt-hala?utm_source=chatgpt.com
