The filmmakers
The directors: Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor
Two Israeli journalists and filmmakers who chose to document what their own state does to Palestinians, and now face calls to strip them of their citizenship for it.
Yuval Abraham
Yuval Abraham is an Israeli investigative journalist, filmmaker and Arabic–Hebrew translator, born in Beersheba. Assigned to the army’s Intelligence Corps at 19, he refused to serve after a week of training. He learned Arabic, met Palestinians in the West Bank and stayed with families as their homes were demolished.
He co-founded Across the Wall, a project translating Palestinians’ stories from Gaza into Hebrew, with the journalist Ahmed Alnaouq. The project stopped in November 2023 after 23 members of Alnaouq’s family were killed by Israeli bombing.
As a reporter for +972 Magazine and Local Call, he revealed in 2024 the AI targeting system known as Lavender. In 2024 he received the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award.
Rachel Szor
Rachel Szor is an Israeli filmmaker, cinematographer, editor and investigative journalist, born in Tel Aviv. She was the cinematographer and a co-director of No Other Land, and co-wrote, co-directed and filmed NAZA with Abraham.
No Other Land
With the Palestinian activists Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, Abraham and Szor spent five years filming the destruction of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. No Other Land won the Berlinale Documentary Award and the Panorama Audience Award in 2024, and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2025.
NAZA, and the backlash
After NAZA premiered in Venice, Israel’s culture minister called for the directors’ citizenship to be revoked for “treason”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the film part of “global antisemitic incitement” and announced bills to revoke the citizenship of Israelis who “defame” soldiers abroad. Protesters surrounded Rachel Szor’s parents’ house calling to “execute the traitors”.
More than a thousand Israeli filmmakers, including Ari Folman, signed a petition in their support. Over 40 Israeli human rights and peace organizations, among them B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now and Adalah, called on the authorities to stop the incitement. The International Documentary Association urged the Israeli government to withdraw its threats.