Naza: The film cited against Israel provides decisive evidence against the genocide accusation

As the familiar saying goes, “Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore; it’s too crowded.” The evidence proves the opposite of the claim it is meant to support. The same contradiction emerges when those accusing Israel of genocide invoke the Israeli film Naza: the very testimonies they cite to support their false accusation provide decisive evidence against it.

When confronted with the devastating images and human suffering of war, it is entirely legitimate to ask whether there was an intent to destroy innocent people. And that is precisely the question Naza helps answer – just not in the way those who falsely accuse Israel of genocide would like to use the film. In fact, Naza provides decisive evidence against the accusation of genocide leveled at Israel.

Naza – an abbreviation of the Hebrew term nezek agavi, meaning “collateral damage” – examines the concept the Israeli military uses in a process of assessing expected civilian casualties before each airstrike.

An army allegedly committing genocide against a population calculates, before every strike, how many civilians might die and uses that assessment to decide whether to carry out the attack, modify it or call it off.

That is not the language of genocide. It is the opposite.

Collateral damage assessments: Evidence against intent

What does the film reveal? A system – a bureaucratic, systematic, multistage process – in which intelligence analysts map the area surrounding a target; legal advisers, including independent personnel from the Military Advocate General’s (MAG) office, assess the legality of an attack; and operational commanders weigh proportionality, asking whether the anticipated military advantage is proportionate to the potential civilian harm.

Meanwhile, technological systems monitor the target area and civilian movements in real time.

If the expected civilian casualties exceed the threshold deemed justified, the attack is not carried out.

The Israeli military has released internal footage showing strikes being called off in real time because civilians, including children, appeared near the target. In one recording, a missile that had already been launched was diverted in mid-flight because civilians were approaching the target.

Why would the Israeli military operate an expensive, complex system whose sole purpose is to minimize civilian deaths? The answer is clear.

During the first three months of the war launched after Hamas terrorists’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the Israeli military sent 13.5 million text messages and 15 million recorded voice messages, and made 79,000 personal phone calls to warn the civilian population.

Israel also introduced the so-called “roof-knocking” technique: dropping a low-yield, nonlethal projectile onto a building’s roof to warn its occupants that they have a few minutes to escape before the actual strike.

An army intent on committing genocide does not knock on the roof or give people time to flee.

Why didn’t Israel carpet-bomb Gaza?

This is one of the least-asked, yet perhaps most important, questions of the war.

If the objective had been to destroy the Palestinian people, Israel could have leveled the entire Gaza Strip through carpet bombing in a single week. Instead, the Israeli military sent ground forces in, choosing the most dangerous form of warfare – urban combat – in which its own soldiers are maximally exposed to enemy traps, mines, and ambushes.

By September 2026, nearly a thousand Israeli soldiers had fallen in the war, including many senior officers who, true to IDF tradition, led from the front, setting an example of courage for their troops.

Israel does not carpet-bomb because it is unwilling to kill tens of thousands of people indiscriminately. It sends its own sons and daughters into some of the most dangerous terrain in the world to make its strikes targeted and its operations selective, and to distinguish combatants from civilians wherever possible.

Colonel John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point – an Iraq combat veteran who has devoted his career to studying urban warfare – has said:

“The Israeli military has taken more measures to avoid civilian casualties than virtually any other military in history. These efforts exceed even those undertaken by the United States in its own wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Spencer is neither Israeli nor Jewish. He is an American military officer who studies the science of urban warfare, and his assessment is that Israel’s efforts to protect civilians in Gaza are unprecedented in military history.

This does not, of course, mean that mistakes, tragedies, or even possible violations of the law have not occurred. War is horrific, and urban warfare is particularly so. But Spencer’s words place the accusations in context: what Israel is doing is not genocide. It is the opposite.

What Naza inexplicably omits

What Naza inexplicably omits, from a professional standpoint, is precisely the broader context. The Israeli military is not fighting a conventional army. Hamas has deliberately and systematically embedded itself in civilian infrastructure as a matter of strategy:

Command bunkers beneath hospitals. Rocket launchers in schoolyards. Weapons depots inside residential buildings. Tunnel entrances beside mosques. Fighting positions in the middle of densely populated neighborhoods.

This is a central element of Hamas’s war doctrine: maximizing casualties among its own civilian population to turn international public opinion against Israel. Hamas uses its own people as human shields, and every civilian death becomes a propaganda victory for the organization.

Fighting in such an environment while trying to minimize civilian casualties is not merely difficult – it is almost impossible. And yet that is what the Israeli military is trying to do: with every collateral damage assessment, every phone call, every canceled strike, and every roof-knocking warning.

These are the characteristics of a military that, in an exceptionally brutal combat environment, is trying to comply with the norms of international humanitarian law.

The system may not be perfect. There may have been cases in which the threshold was set too high. Specific violations of the law may have occurred: they happen in every war, and they must be investigated.

But the very existence of this system – the fact that its operative concept is “collateral damage,” rather than “destruction” – rules out genocidal intent.

What Naza actually proves

Naza proves that a system exists within the Israeli military whose purpose is to keep civilian casualties as low as possible.

The film also shows Israeli soldiers whose consciences give them the courage to speak up when they question their superiors’ judgment. It further demonstrates that, even in wartime, Israeli democracy makes possible to make a film like this and for the concerns it raises to enter public debate.

Yet the timing could hardly be worse. With Israel voting next month, rival political camps are trading accusations, leaving little room for substantive debate. At home and abroad, too many are rushing to judgment before even watching the film.

That makes a serious response all the more important. Incidents must be investigated, those responsible for wrongdoing held accountable, and mistakes corrected – as the military has pledged to do. We owe this to our country’s honor, to our own consciences and those of our children, and to our commitment to the truth.

At the same time, we must once again reject the false accusation of genocide – firmly and calmly, on the strength of the evidence. Even Naza helps us make that case.