The Venice Film Festival was captivated by the premiere of Naja, a ground-breaking Israeli documentary detailing the algorithmic targeting and AI-assisted strike systems deployed against Palestinians in Gaza. Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor—co-creators of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land alongside Palestinian filmmakers Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal—the 80-minute feature concluded with a nearly 25-minute standing ovation from critics, filmmakers, and festival attendees.
Investigated over a three-year period, Naja incorporates altered-identity, shadow-lit rooftop interviews conducted in Tel Aviv with whistleblowing Israeli military and intelligence personnel. The film exposes the operational mechanics of “Lavender,” an AI system designed to analyze mass telecommunications and movement data to generate strike targets, which one intelligence source described as functioning like a “mass-production factory” for targeted killings.
Named after a Hebrew intelligence term denoting collateral civilian fatality estimates per airstrike, Naja was produced by Jim Wilson (The Zone of Interest) alongside The Guardian, with Jonathan Glazer serving as executive producer. Speaking to AFP, director Yuval Abraham emphasized that the project aims to compel Western governments to reconsider diplomatic and military support for Israel, asserting that civilian casualties in Gaza were calculated policy rather than unintentional collateral damage.
