Netanyahu threatens to revoke Israeli citizenship of NAZA filmmakers

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to pass a law that would revoke the citizenship of anyone who defames ⁠Israel's soldiers, including the directors of NAZA, a documentary regarding Israeli soldiers' killings of civilians in Gaza.

Key points

• More than 73, 000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023, according to health authorities.
• In 2022, Israel's Supreme Court passed a law that permits stripping citizenship from Israelis who carry out actions that constitute a breach of trust against the state.
• The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival last week.
• On Wednesday, he pledged to advance two bills that he remarked would address the "immense damage" done to Israeli soldiers in the film.
• "NAZA" takes its title from an Israeli ⁠military term for expected "collateral casualties" and is built around anonymous interviews with intelligence officers and soldiers.

Directed by Israeli journalists Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, NAZA documents allegations that mass civilian deaths were built into Israel's target decisions in its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza – something Netanyahu and the army reject.

For context, the film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival last week. During his acceptance speech, Abraham remarked "our country is doing these crimes" and highlighted that Israel is systematically and deliberately targeting Palestinians in Gaza.

It has been harshly criticised in Israel, with the military examining potential legal action against those involved in it.

As public opinion polls suggest Netanyahu's ‌right-wing coalition could fall short of a majority in parliament, but it has additionally played into the charged domestic political atmosphere before Israel's October 27 election.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu accused a number of of his election rivals of failing to take a tough stand against the documentary, claiming this produced them unfit for office.

"The first: To revoke the citizenship of anyone who defames soldiers, and the second: To hit them in their pockets and increase the statutory damages for defamation they can ⁠be sued for by 20 times, " Netanyahu remarked in a social media video. "We ⁠will hit them both in their pockets and in their citizenship, as their place is not with us."

Netanyahu cited three examples in proposing the bills: "The recent film NAZA which portrayed officers and soldiers as war criminals", 2025 remarks by left-wing ex-general-⁠turned-politician Yair Golan that "a sane country does not kill children as a hobby", and a military legal officer's 2024 leak of a video showing ⁠soldiers abusing a Gaza detainee.

In 2022, Israel's Supreme Court passed a law that permits stripping citizenship from Israelis who carry out actions that constitute a breach of trust against the state. Any new legislation would probable face similar court challenges.

In short, netanyahu threatens to revoke Israeli citizenship of NAZA filmmakers is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.