Venice Documentary Exposes AI Target Selection in Gaza War

A documentary examining Israel's use of artificial intelligence to select targets in Gaza has sparked intense reaction at the Venice Film Festival, where it received what may be a record 25-minute standing ovation following its Thursday premiere.

NAZA, directed by Oscar-winning Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, features interviews with 24 Israeli military and intelligence personnel who spoke on condition of anonymity about automated targeting systems used during the Gaza conflict. The 80-minute film, the only documentary competing at this year's festival, details an AI system called "Lavender" that identified individuals for assassination based on mass surveillance data.

Inside the automated targeting system

The whistle-blowers, whose voices and faces were digitally altered, described working with systems that analyzed phone calls, movements, and interactions across Gaza's telecommunications network to generate target lists. According to interviewees featured in the film, the process operated at industrial scale.

"It was done on a mass scale, like a factory," one source told the filmmakers during rooftop interviews conducted at night in Tel Aviv. Another described the experience as "like a video game because everything is done remotely," while a third called it "insanely fun."

The film's title derives from Israeli military terminology—NAZA is reportedly a euphemism used to indicate the expected number of civilian casualties in a planned strike. Sources in the documentary describe systematic destruction of civilian homes and what they characterized as disregard for humanitarian law, set against what one called a "general atmosphere" of "hatred" towards Palestinians.

Why it matters

The documentary provides rare firsthand accounts of how AI systems are being deployed in active combat zones to automate life-and-death targeting decisions. As militaries worldwide invest heavily in artificial intelligence for defense applications, the film raises urgent questions about algorithmic warfare, civilian protection, and accountability when machines help select targets. The strong reception at Venice—surpassing last year's 23-minute ovation for another Gaza-focused film—signals growing international concern about the conduct of the conflict.

Production and context

The film resulted from nearly three years of investigation and was produced by Britain's Jim Wilson with involvement from Jonathan Glazer, the team behind Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest. The Guardian newspaper also contributed to the production.

Abraham and Szor previously won an Academy Award in 2025 for No Other Land, which examined Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank. They told reporters they hope the new documentary will encourage Western nations to reconsider their support for Israeli military operations and apply diplomatic pressure.

Israel's government denies deliberately targeting civilians, stating that Hamas operates within Gaza's densely populated areas where approximately 2 million people lived before the conflict began. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry reports approximately 73,500 Palestinian deaths and 174,500 wounded since October 2023, figures the United Nations considers reliable. The conflict followed a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, that killed 1,219 people in Israel.

Foreign journalists have been largely prevented from independent reporting inside Gaza since the conflict's start, except under controlled conditions with Israeli military escorts. The Venice Film Festival concludes Saturday.

These details were first reported by Agence France-Presse.