The Israeli government is running a multi-channel information operation against NAZA, the Guardian-produced documentary that details Israel's AI-assisted mass surveillance and targeting systems used in Gaza. The campaign includes promoting a counterfeit documentary, threatening the original filmmakers with treason charges and citizenship revocation, and mobilizing far-right activists to physically intimidate them. The counterfeit film, NAZA: The Real Story, was produced by Ariel Averbuch, an Israeli attorney and army reservist who runs an organization specializing in what he calls "advocacy warfare." A second filmmaker listed on the project, Roi Danino, is a candidate for the rightwing Israel First party. The website hosting the film, nazadocumentary.com, was registered on 16 September — six days after the real NAZA won the special jury prize at Venice following the longest standing ovation in the festival's history. The impersonation was initially brazen. The counterfeit website falsely listed Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor as directors, named real festival screenings, and distorted the film's official IMDB synopsis by removing references to Palestinian civilian deaths. Only after the actual counterfeit video was uploaded did the site drop this pretense. A viewer counter on the site now claims 42 million views; the film's YouTube page shows 30,000. Technical analysis suggests the counter may have been driven by bot requests rather than actual viewers. When pressed, Averbuch referred questions about the 42 million figure to his "tech team." The state apparatus has mobilized in parallel. Israel's ministry of culture announced a formal investigation into the real documentary within a week of its Venice premiere. The IDF chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, stated they would use "every tool at our disposal" against the film, and the military issued a 10-page response. The Israeli embassy to the US shared the counterfeit documentary on social media, while the prime minister's office awarded the counterfeit filmmakers a certificate of appreciation "for their contribution to Israeli public diplomacy." The intimidation campaign extends to physical threats. Demonstrators gathered outside the home of Szor's parents demanding the death penalty. A mural depicting the filmmakers through gun sights appeared in Ashdod. Far-right activist Mordechai David announced fundraising to establish a team to "chase" Abraham, posting on Instagram: "We'll find him." The two Palestinian co-directors of Abraham and Szor's previous Oscar-winning film, No Other Land — Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal — have been harassed or detained by the Israeli military since that film won its Oscar in 2025. The original NAZA documentary is based on 24 interviews with Israeli military insiders and drew from more than 100 sources with knowledge of military targeting systems used in the Gaza war. The Israeli military has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, in what a UN commission has described as genocide. The film details how an AI-assisted mass surveillance apparatus was activated to target Hamas operatives with the knowledge that large numbers of civilians would die. NAZA is currently screening in cinemas across more than 50 countries and will be available free on the Guardian's website from late November. Producer James Wilson, speaking at the London Film Festival, acknowledged the team had not anticipated the scale of official backlash: "To have made a documentary film and be threatened by the political elites of your home country, with charges of treason and defamation … it's been very difficult and stressful and horrible and scary for them."
