The IDF document on Gaza, which debunks the frivolous simplification and moral ambiguity of ‘Naza’, is a text of painful seriousness

Anyone reading the IDF document, the Israeli Defence Forces, in response to the documentary "Naza" – which features anonymous testimonies from military personnel who claim to know more about the civilian casualties of the Gaza war than they actually do (or often do not know, or know all too well what they are saying) – will be struck by a sense of painful gravity, the very opposite of the glitzy and frivolous commercial success of the film, which soothes the consciences of those with pure and applauding souls. The task of those who led the military operations in Gaza has been, and remains, one of monstrous difficulty. This is due to the tragic consequences of an urban war – ‘asymmetrical’, as it is called – against a terrorist enemy that openly claims the blood of civilian victims on its side as a goal to be achieved for the sake of the cause. Sinwar, the mastermind and architect of the 7 October attacks, had literally spoken of one hundred thousand or more Palestinians being sacrificed in the name of the so-called ‘resistance’ – that is, the terrorist network aiming to recapture Jerusalem and drive the Zionist Jews from their country. Civilians—and children in particular—killed as collateral damage (according to the acronym Naza) are the heart-rending issue that the war has raised in a theatre of daily cruelty, broadcast on every screen and commented on or interpreted on television and on social media as a clash between evil—the war waged by Netanyahu and the IDF—and good—the resistance led by Sinwar and Hamas.

The IDF document demonstrates that the documentary is – even without making reckless accusations such as treason in wartime – which are hardly compatible with a democracy that takes pride and glory in its army, even in a moral sense, but simply by analysing its structure and narrative techniques, is a tool of manipulation that exploits unproven arguments to assert a preconceived thesis and draws nonsensical and defamatory conclusions from completely distorted facts or outright fabrications.

The rational basis for the army’s indictment of the complacency and moral ambiguity of the authors of "Naza" is already familiar to Il Foglio’s readers. We have been repeating this for three years. Hamas sought and achieved a high number of civilian casualties in urban warfare. This was the ‘ethical’ military objective to be trumpeted in order to justify the horror of the 7 October pogrom and to overturn the balance of power with the Jews and Zionism in global public opinion, to sabotage the Abraham Accords and to promote the interests – including nuclear ones – of exterminationist Iran. Israel’s military fulfilled its duty, albeit with mistakes and terrible lapses – as occurs in every war – but overall adhering to a scrupulous code of conduct that has never been taken into account by the fanatical anti-Zionist sentiment that sides with the jihadists of Free Palestine. Here, in this text written with a sense of responsibility—finally an example of genuine consternation, yet not without justifiable pride, in the face of such cynical accusations—the reader will find summarised the vast array of humanitarian lies, designed to serve propaganda and obscure the truth, alongside the human reality of a tragedy that, sadly, continues but which was inevitable after 7 October, and is therefore tragic.