Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed in new film

A scene from NAZA, a documentary produced . Photograph: The Guardian View image in fullscreen A scene from NAZA, a documentary produced . Photograph: The Guardian Secret systems used 24 Israeli military insiders ​on the secret ​systems used in ​the war on Gaza​ has been revealed in a new documentary film about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians. NAZA, a film from the Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was shown at the Venice international film festival on Thursday as the only documentary competing for its prestigious Golden Lion award. The film’s title comes from an Israeli military acronym used euphemistically to refer to civilians expected to be killed in a military attack. Produced , it features extensive testimony from Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers involved in the surveillance and remote killing of Palestinian civilians. Interviews were filmed at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv, on the condition of anonymity because of the risks involved in speaking publicly about Israel’s war activities. The appearance and voices of participants in the film were digitally altered to disguise their identities. The interviewees detail the secret methods used , including AI-based systems built to identify large numbers of potential low-ranking Hamas targets, who were then bombed in their homes at night, in the knowledge attacks would also kill their families. View image in fullscreen Israeli soldiers at a military position overlooking the so-called yellow line in Gaza in May. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/APThe Israeli military hacked into phones to identify the location of such targets, and covertly listened into conversations with their wives and children moments before they were all killed. The film also features first-person accounts about the destruction of neighbourhoods where the Israeli military estimated that up to 25% of residents were still sheltering in their homes, the systematic burning of civilian homes, and the killing of civilians at a food distribution site. Abraham said at a press conference in Venice on Thursday: “We just told these officers: ‘Please describe to us what you did. How do these systems work? Sketch it out for us.’ Sometimes, in just asking the questions, you get the answers. “Some of them did not express remorse and some did. Some spoke out of indifference, some out of pride.” View image in fullscreen The film’s directors, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abhram (centre), with producers and crew members at the Venice film festival on Thursday. Photograph: Yves Herman/ReutersSeveral interviewees worked in a secret intelligence unit that reports directly to the office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; one said their mission was to “thwart peace”. “We made this film out of a sense of obligation to use our position as Israeli film-makers and journalists to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible,” Abraham and Szor said in their directors’ statement.