The IDF’s own targeting presentation names 3 kinds of person who may be attacked, and a civilian is one of them only “for such time” as he takes part in hostilities. Israel’s own report on the 2014 Gaza war states that the IDF “did not deliberately target civilian objects or civilians not directly participating in hostilities.” The documentary NAZA alleges that in the current war civilians were attacked in the knowledge that they would die. In 18 clips of IDF targeting footage provided to the Hanover Institute, every strike stops, 15 of them after people are seen near the target, and none shows a strike that went ahead with civilians in view.
Key Findings
- The IDF’s targeting presentation, a party’s own document, defines a military target as objects and 3 kinds of person, the third “a civilian directly participating in hostilities (for such time that he does so),” the limit Article 51(3) of Additional Protocol I sets.
- Israel’s own May 2015 report on the 2014 Gaza war states that the IDF targeted people only “where there was reasonable certainty” that they were fighters or taking part in hostilities, and that it “did not deliberately target” other civilians.
- In 18 clips of IDF targeting footage provided to the Hanover Institute, the reason given for stopping is a person in 15, trucks in 1 and nothing on screen in 2; 10 end with the instruction to divert a munition.
- The IDF’s strike chart, in its own presentation, asks “Civilians in Target?” with a Yes and a No and draws no branch for either answer.
- The IDF confirmed in December 2024 that its rules of engagement changed when the current war broke out, The Times of Israel reported, and did not publish them.
What does NAZA allege about the IDF and civilians?
NAZA rests on testimony from 24 anonymous Israeli military and intelligence insiders. The Guardian, which produced the film, reports that they describe low-ranking Hamas targets “bombed in their homes at night, in the knowledge attacks would also kill their families,” and the destruction of neighborhoods where the military “estimated that up to 25% of residents were still sheltering in their homes.”
The directors, quoted by The Guardian, say their subject is “the orders themselves, the policies, the accepted practices, the language and logic that make those practices possible.” The IDF’s answer, in its own statement of 11 September 2026, is that it “categorically rejects these allegations,” that it “strikes military targets and makes unprecedented efforts to minimize harm to civilians,” and that the film “relies on anonymous testimonies from individuals whose identity cannot be verified.”
The question in the title can be asked two ways, and Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions treats them as two rules. Israel is not a party to Additional Protocols I or II; its May 2015 report on the 2014 war states that it “abides by their provisions inasmuch as they reflect rules of customary international law.” Article 51(2) says that “The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack.” Article 51(5)(b) separately forbids “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”
The first rule concerns a civilian as the target. The second concerns a civilian as the expected harm of an attack on something else. The film’s accounts, as The Guardian reports them, involve both: people identified for attack, and the families killed with them. The IDF records set out below speak to both rules. They show who the IDF says may be attacked, the questions its process asks about civilians, and 18 moments in which a strike stopped. They are the IDF’s own records, and each is labelled that way where it is used.
Whom does the IDF’s presentation say may be attacked?
The IDF’s targeting presentation, its own document, lists 3 kinds of person as military targets: “A Member of an enemy armed force, a member of an organize [sic] armed group, or a civilian directly participating in hostilities (for such time that he does so).” The first part of the same slide defines targetable objects.
The parenthesis is the part that answers the question, and the IDF presentation states it without qualification. Article 51(3) of Additional Protocol I says that civilians keep their protection “unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities,” and the presentation’s wording tracks that limit. Israel’s own report on the 2014 war, published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 2015, states the same rule: civilians who take a direct part “become legitimate targets for attack during and for such time as they so participate in hostilities.” The report adds that the IDF gives its personnel “a list of activities amounting to direct participation in hostilities, which accords with the relevant guidelines given by Israel’s Supreme Court.”
The definition comes after a slide that frames the whole deck in three words, “Distinction,” “Proportionality” and “Precautions,” with a note for “Special protection.” Distinction is the principle at issue in the title: attacks are to be directed at military targets and not at civilians.
What the presentation does not say is how a person seen from the air is placed in one of the three categories, or who decides that a civilian is taking part in hostilities at a given moment. Its definition fixes the rule. It does not show the rule being applied to anyone, and the IDF’s published list of activities amounting to direct participation, mentioned in the 2015 report, is not in any record examined here.
Who counts as a civilian in Israel’s stated view?
Israel’s own report on the 2014 war, dated May 2015, states that members of organized armed groups “may be attacked at any time by the sole virtue of their membership,” and that members of Hamas’s military wing are lawful targets “at all times and in all places.” On that view a member off duty is not a civilian at all.
The report defends the position in a footnote. A member of an organized armed group, it says, “need not have a ‘continuous combat function’ in order to be targetable under customary international law,” and it acknowledges that this holds “notwithstanding the approach taken in the interpretative guidance prepared by the ICRC.” The phrase in quotation marks is the test in the International Committee of the Red Cross guidance the footnote cites, and Israel’s report states that a member need not meet it.
The same report draws a line on the other side. “The IDF did not target Hamas lawmakers, politicians or law-enforcement officials because of their affiliation with Hamas,” it states, and “The IDF recognises that civilians affiliated with Hamas are not lawful targets as such.” Which groups count as organized armed groups is settled, it says, by intelligence assessments and “consultations with military lawyers,” overseen by “Israel’s highest legal echelons, including the Ministry of Justice.”
This is where the two accounts part before any strike is planned. The Guardian reports the film’s interviewees describing “large numbers of potential low-ranking Hamas targets.” Under Israel’s stated view, rank does not decide the question; membership does. Under the test the footnote sets aside, function would. The records examined here state Israel’s legal position. None of them shows how membership was established for any person struck in the current war, or how many of the people the film describes would qualify under either test.
What does the IDF’s strike chart do when civilians are in the target?
The IDF’s strike chart, in its own presentation, asks “Civilians in Target?” and offers 2 answers, Yes and No, without drawing a branch from either; every arrow runs forward to “Permission to Strike.” The chart records that the question is asked, not what follows from each answer.
What follows is set out in Israel’s own statements of the law. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, answering questions on the war in December 2023, states that proportionality “is to be applied to each and every attack independently” and that “Israeli strikes that do not meet this threshold have been, and will continue to be, aborted.” Its November 2023 paper on the legal aspects adds that “compliance is conduct-oriented, not result-oriented”: an attack is judged on what was expected when it was ordered.
On that account, a Yes at the civilian gate is not a stop by itself. It enters an estimate of expected harm, which is weighed against the military advantage the commander anticipates. Israel’s 2015 report says the estimate always required “a timely assessment regarding the presence of civilians,” and that civilians who stayed despite warnings were not treated “as voluntary human shields and thus legitimate targets for attack.” Nor, it states, did the IDF “discount such civilians for purposes of its proportionality analyses.”
The chart therefore places the film’s allegation precisely. The dispute is not over whether the question is asked; the IDF’s own chart shows that it is. It is over the answer and its weight, which the chart does not record and which the IDF has not published for any strike. The dispute over a single strike estimate of 500, which the IDF denies ever approving, is a dispute about that weight.
What happens in the IDF’s footage when people appear near a target?
In the 18 clips of IDF targeting footage provided to the Hanover Institute, the IDF’s own record, every exchange ends in a stop, and the reason given is a person in 15: groups, a cyclist, a woman in a car, children. One stop is for trucks, and two give no reason on screen.
| Reason given on screen | Clips | Example from the subtitles |
|---|---|---|
| People near the target | 15 | “Copy that, cancelled due to uninvolved [civilians]” |
| Trucks | 1 | “Divert, don’t harm the trucks” |
| No reason on screen | 2 | “This is an active area” |
One clip uses the law’s own word, as the IDF footage shows. On 24 May 2024 the strike is called off and the reply is “Copy that, cancelled due to uninvolved [civilians],” with the bracketed word supplied in the subtitles.
- We cancelled the [attack on the] target, thanks
- Copy that, cancelled due to uninvolved [civilians]
In two clips the target itself appears to be a person, and what stops the strike is the person beside him. On 14 August 2024 the exchange is “We suspect that there is a woman in the car with him,” then “Stand by while we confirm.” On 10 December 2024 it is “Isn’t that a child near him?” then “Divert, divert, divert. I diverted.”
- We suspect that there is a woman in the car with him
- Stand by while we confirm
- Copy, we are standing by
- Isn’t that a child near him?
- Divert, divert, divert. I diverted
The footage shows civilians treated as a reason to stop. It shows nothing either side of that moment: not who the target was, not whether it was struck later, and not any strike that went ahead with people in view. The clips are a selection, made before they reached the Institute, and they are published here exactly as received.
How many of the stopped strikes had the munition already been released?
In 10 of the 18 IDF clips, on the IDF’s own footage, the last instruction is to divert, the word Israel’s 2015 report uses for redirecting a bomb “after the bomb had been dropped but before it hit its target.” The other 8 end in an abort, a cancellation or a hold, with no instruction to divert.
The 2015 report explains the stakes of that difference through one case from 8 July 2014 in Khan Yunis. Civilians warned out of a residential building had left, but “a number of people were nevertheless identified as approaching or returning to the premises after the bomb had been dropped but before it hit its target.” At that stage, the report states, “given the type of bomb, there was no technical possibility of diverting the bomb or aborting the attack,” and “eight civilians lost their lives in this exceptional incident.”
A diversion is therefore a last-seconds decision that depends on the weapon. The latest clip in the set shows how short the interval can be. On 12 July 2026 the exchange counts down, “Four people approaching, ten seconds,” reports “Four minors, currently not very close,” and ends “Divert [ammunition].”
- Four people approaching, ten seconds
- Four minors, currently not very close
- Divert [ammunition]. Divert [ammuniotion] [sic]
The ten diverted clips do not show where the munition landed after it was redirected. The 2015 case shows the other outcome: a bomb that could not be diverted, and civilians who were not seen until it had been released. The records examined here contain one example of each, from two different wars, and no count of either.
What did Israel say about targeting civilians after the 2014 war?
Israel’s own report on the 2014 Gaza war, dated May 2015, states that the IDF targeted people only “where there was reasonable certainty that they were members of organised armed groups or civilians directly participating in hostilities,” and that “The IDF did not deliberately target civilian objects or civilians not directly participating in hostilities.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs report acknowledges the deaths that followed. “Uninvolved civilians were killed during the 2014 Gaza Conflict,” it states. “Israel did not intend these casualties and regrets that they occurred.” It also records strikes stopped for civilians who were not legally required to stop them. Pilots, it says, “exercised their discretion to cancel or delay planned strikes due to the presence of civilians, even when not so required by the law,” including an attack on a weapons manufacturing site in al-Maghazi on 10 July, aborted when “a large group of people” was seen near the target, and one on a rocket launching site in Al-Shati on 13 July, aborted “after spotting three civilians walking near the site.”
Commanders, the report adds, “refrained from carrying out attacks in light of the potential for civilian harm, even where such harm may have been considered proportionate.” The presentation provided to the Institute makes the same point on its seventeenth slide, “Many strikes were cancelled due to unexpected presence of civilians,” with one dated example: 14 July 2014, the same date as the IDF video the 2015 report cites for the two July aborts.
The report is Israel’s own account of its own conduct, and every example in it comes from a war that ended nine years before the current one began. It gives no count of strikes cancelled for civilians. No equivalent report on the current war is among the records examined here.
Did the IDF’s rules on civilian harm change in the current war?
The IDF confirmed in December 2024 that its rules of engagement changed when the war broke out, as The Times of Israel reported, responding to an investigation by The New York Times, and maintained that its practices remained consistent with international law. The IDF did not publish the rules.
The same exchange carries the IDF’s account of how targets were verified. The IDF told the newspaper, The Times of Israel reported, that “officers always verified the information provided” by artificial intelligence systems, and denied that such tools were anything more than a “starting point” of target selection. The investigation’s figures for how many civilian deaths could be approved per strike came from officers the newspaper did not name. The IDF published no figure of its own in reply, and none appears in any IDF record examined here.
The confirmation fixes the date of the records. The 2015 report, the legal review on the presentation’s fifteenth slide and its one dated cancellation all date from 2014. The presentation itself carries no date; one of its evacuation notices dates from February 2024 and its worked examples from ten years earlier, so it describes a process across two wars and does not say which rules each slide reflects.
The 18 clips are the only records here dated inside the current war, from April 2024 to July 2026. They show strikes stopping under whatever rules applied on those days. They cannot show what the changed rules permitted when no one called a stop, which is the conduct the film’s interviewees describe.
How does Israel decide whether a civilian death was a crime?
The IDF’s Military Advocate General’s Corps, in its own account, states that in armed conflict “death or injury to a civilian or harm to civilian objects, while tragic and regrettable, in most cases do not by themselves indicate a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct.” It had opened 74 criminal investigations by 3 August 2024, 6 of them into alleged illegal use of force.
The threshold is the other half of the deliberate-targeting question, as the Military Advocate General’s Corps states it. Under it, a civilian death is not treated as evidence of intent; an investigation needs a reason to suspect that the death was not “reasonable aftermath of lawful operational activity,” in the Corps’ words. The same account records more than 1,000 incidents referred for factual assessment. Both figures are the IDF’s own counts of its own process, and they count investigations opened, not findings. The findings other named bodies have issued are set out in the Institute’s report on claims of deliberate targeting.
The IDF also placed a duty on the film’s own sources. A soldier who witnesses a violation “is required under military orders to report it so that the need to open an investigation can be examined,” it said on 11 September 2026. “This also applies to individuals who were interviewed for the film.”
No IDF record examined here counts the strikes stopped because civilians were present, or the strikes that went ahead with civilians in the target. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in December 2023 that “countless attacks have been aborted or avoided completely in order to prevent harm to civilians,” and the IDF has published footage of such aborts before, as The Times of Israel reported on 18 December 2023. Countless is the Ministry’s word, not a number. Without the count of approvals, stops and strikes, neither the 18 clips nor the film’s cases can be placed against the whole.
Methodology and limitations
This report sets the published account of the documentary NAZA against the IDF’s own records: a targeting presentation and 18 clips of footage provided to the Institute, the IDF’s statement on the film, and the Israeli government’s published statements of its targeting law, principally the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ May 2015 report on the 2014 Gaza war. The film’s claims come from The Guardian, which produced it; the film itself was not viewed. Treaty wording is quoted from Additional Protocol I.
The 18 clips were provided to the Hanover Institute by a source on 17 September 2026 and appear exactly as received, each with the SHA-256 checksum of its file. The Institute classified each clip by the last instruction on screen, and by the reason the exchange gives for stopping: a person or people, a vehicle, or none stated. The dates and subtitles are part of the files as supplied, and the Institute has not independently verified when or where any clip was recorded.
Every record here is a party’s own account, and the clips and the presentation’s examples are selections, so none supports a rate or a finding about any strike the film describes. The 2015 report describes the rules of 2014, which the IDF has confirmed changed in the current war; where it is quoted, its date is given.
Conclusion
The IDF’s own records answer the question in the title with a rule and a set of examples. Does the IDF deliberately target civilians? The presentation limits targetable civilians to those taking part in hostilities, and only while they do. The strike chart asks whether civilians are in the target. Israel’s 2015 report states that the IDF did not deliberately target civilians in the 2014 war. In 18 recorded exchanges from the current one, the strike stops each time, and in 15 the reason is a person on the ground.
The same records show where the allegation lies beyond their reach. Israel’s stated view counts a member of an armed wing as a target at all times and in all places, so the line between a civilian and a fighter is drawn before any strike, and drawn without the test in the Red Cross guidance its report sets aside. The civilian gate on the chart has no recorded consequence, and the rules that weighed its answer changed when the war began.
A strike that stopped leaves a clip; a strike that went ahead leaves an outcome and, somewhere, an estimate. If the estimates for the strikes that proceeded were ever set beside the 18 that did not, which of them would show the rule, and which the exception?
Frequently Asked Questions
Does international law allow attacks that kill civilians?
Additional Protocol I forbids making civilians “the object of attack” in Article 51(2) and forbids attacks whose expected civilian harm “would be excessive” against the anticipated military advantage in Article 51(5)(b). An attack on a military target that kills civilians is judged under the second rule, which Israel’s own statements describe as applied “to each and every attack independently.”
When can a civilian be attacked under the IDF’s definition?
The IDF’s presentation allows it only for “a civilian directly participating in hostilities (for such time that he does so).” Israel’s 2015 report says the IDF gives personnel a list of activities that count, in line with guidelines from Israel’s Supreme Court; the list itself is not published in the records examined here.
Why does Israel treat off-duty members of Hamas’s military wing as targets?
Israel’s May 2015 report states that members of organized armed groups may be attacked “by the sole virtue of their membership,” and states that a member need not have a “continuous combat function,” the test in the Red Cross guidance it cites. It states separately that civilians affiliated with Hamas are “not lawful targets as such.”
Were the 18 IDF clips chosen to show strikes being stopped?
The clips were selected before they reached the Institute, and every one ends in a stop, so they cannot show how often strikes stopped or went ahead. The IDF has published footage of aborted strikes before, as The Times of Israel reported in December 2023.
What does it mean when the IDF footage says “divert”?
In Israel’s own 2015 report, diverting refers to redirecting a bomb “after the bomb had been dropped but before it hit its target,” which the report says is not always technically possible. Ten of the 18 clips end with that instruction.
Has the IDF published its rules of engagement for the current war?
No IDF record examined here contains them. The IDF confirmed in December 2024, as The Times of Israel reported, that the rules changed when the war broke out, and maintained that its practices remained consistent with international law.
Has any IDF soldier been prosecuted over the strikes NAZA describes?
None of the records examined identifies a prosecution for any strike the film describes, and the film, as reported, identifies none by date or place. The IDF’s Military Advocate General’s Corps reported 74 criminal investigations opened by 3 August 2024, its own count, across all alleged misconduct in the war.
Sources
- Israel Defense Forces, 2026. The IDF Spokesperson’s Response Following the Publication of the Movie “NAZA.” 11 September 2026. https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/israel-hamas-war-gaza/articles-israel-hamas-war-gaza/distributions-swords-of-iron-war-gaza/the-idf-spokesperson-s-response-following-the-publication-of-the-movie-naza/. Official statement, a party’s own.
- Israel Defense Forces, 2024 to 2026. Targeting footage of strikes diverted or called off, 18 clips. Provided to the Hanover Institute, 17 September 2026, and published as received. Official record, a party’s own footage.
- Israel Defense Forces, undated. Addressing Challenges Through LOAC | IHL, targeting process presentation, 18 slides. Provided to the Hanover Institute. /hanover/media/naza/idf-targeting-process-presentation.pdf. Official record, a party’s own presentation.
- Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2015. The 2014 Gaza Conflict: Factual and Legal Aspects, Chapter VI: IDF Conduct of Operations During the 2014 Gaza Conflict. Dated May 2015, released 14 June 2015. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/idf-conduct-of-operations-during-the-2014-gaza-conflict. Official record, a party’s own account.
- Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023. Hamas-Israel Conflict 2023: Frequently Asked Questions. Updated to 8 December 2023. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/swords-of-iron-faq-6-dec-2023. Official record, a party’s own position.
- Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023. Hamas-Israel Conflict 2023: Key Legal Aspects. Updated to 2 November 2023. https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/generalpage/swords-of-iron-faq-6-dec-2023/en/English_Documents_Hamas-Israel%20Conflict%202023%20-%20Some%20Factual%20and%20Legal%20Aspects%20-%20Israel%20Ministry%20of%20Foreign%20Affairs%20(2%20NOV%202023).pdf. Official record, a party’s own position.
- Military Advocate General’s Corps, Israel Defense Forces, 2024. Addressing Alleged Misconduct in the Context of the War in Gaza. Published 24 February 2024, updated 3 August 2024. https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/military-advocate-generals-corps/addressing-alleged-misconduct-in-the-context-of-the-war-in-gaza-published-february-24-2024/. Official record, a party’s own count.
- Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977. Article 51. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-51. Treaty text.
- The Guardian, 2026. Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed in new film. 10 September 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/10/secret-systems-used-by-israel-in-mass-killings-of-gaza-civilians-revealed-in-new-film. International press, the film’s producer.
- The Times of Israel, 2023. IDF releases videos of airstrikes aborted due to presence of civilians. 18 December 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-releases-videos-of-airstrikes-aborted-due-to-presence-of-civilians/. Israeli press.
- The Times of Israel, 2024. IDF loosened rules of engagement after Oct. 7, allowing more civilian deaths, NY Times. 26 December 2024. https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-loosened-rules-of-engagement-after-oct-7-allowing-more-civilian-deaths-ny-times/. Israeli press, carrying the IDF’s response.