Israeli Minister Calls for Oscar-Winning Directors to Lose Citizenship Over Gaza Film

Israel’s culture minister has called for Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, directors of the documentary NAZA about the mass deaths of civilians in Gaza, to be stripped of their Israeli citizenship. The minister accused the filmmakers of “treason against the state.”

The film NAZA, produced by The Guardian, takes its title from an acronym that Israeli intelligence reportedly uses to refer to the estimated number of civilians who could be killed in an airstrike on Gaza.

In the documentary, Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor speak to 24 former members of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment, who describe AI-powered targeting systems used in strikes on Gaza. According to the film, the attacks have killed tens of thousands of civilians.

One of the sources claims that permission was given to kill 500 people designated as “NAZA” in order to eliminate a single Hamas militant.

The 80-minute documentary received a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday. Following its premiere, the film received a 25-minute standing ovation — reportedly a festival record.

The following day, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar launched a fierce attack on the directors. In a post on X, he accused them of being willing to “harm their homeland for the applause of antisemites around the world.”

“I will immediately begin taking action to strip these despicable creators of their Israeli citizenship for treason against the state,” Zohar wrote.

Other Israeli ministers also sharply criticized the filmmakers.

In 2025, Abraham and Szor won an Oscar for their documentary No Other Land, which focused on violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

“You are a disgrace and a laughingstock to the entire people of Israel. Get out!” far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X.

“I am sure that your friends — meaning our enemies, Hamas in Gaza — will welcome you with open arms,” he added.

Stripping someone of Israeli citizenship is legally possible, but the measure is rarely used. In 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s authority to revoke a person’s citizenship if they had failed to demonstrate “loyalty” to the country — for example, by committing espionage or treason.

In 2023, the law was expanded to include people convicted of “terrorism.”

Yuval Abraham’s family has previously been targeted. Following the world premiere of No Other Land in 2024, his family home was attacked by a far-right mob. The film, among other subjects, documented Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank.

“We are taking risks within a system that grants us privileges and is fundamentally based on Jewish-Israeli supremacy,” Abraham told The Guardian.

“For so many Palestinians, it is not a far-right mob that comes to their homes, but US-funded bulldozers and weapons. Imagine if a Palestinian journalist in Gaza tried to do what we did and called senior Israeli officials. These situations cannot be compared. Most likely, he would have been killed,” the director said.

The Israeli military, responding to NAZA, said it “categorically rejects” the allegations contained in the film. The military also criticized the use of anonymous testimony, saying that the identities of the sources “cannot be verified.”