The IDF’s own presentation records that a Southern Command team divided Gaza into 630 sectors and made “continuous assessments of the population presence” in each, so that forces would be “aware of civilian presence in each sector.” The documentary NAZA alleges that neighborhoods were destroyed where the military estimated that up to 25% of residents were still at home. On the IDF’s own account, then, how many civilians remained in a sector was measured rather than unknown, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry states that the IDF “does not assume that there are no civilians in areas or sites where advance warnings had been given.” None of the IDF records publishes a single sector’s estimate, or what was struck in a sector after it was made.
Key Findings
- The IDF presentation, a party’s own document, records a map dividing Gaza into 630 sectors with “continuous assessments of the population presence” in each, kept by a team led by a brigadier general.
- The Guardian reports NAZA’s interviewees describing neighborhoods destroyed where the military “estimated that up to 25% of residents were still sheltering in their homes”; no IDF record examined gives a sector estimate to set against it.
- Israel’s Foreign Ministry counted over 15 million text messages and over 4.5 million leaflets sent to Gaza by 8 December 2023, its own figures, and states that a warned area is not assumed to be empty.
- The IDF presentation reproduces a February 2024 notice of daily four-hour pauses in named neighborhoods, three of them in Rafah, and an urgent warning to 7 numbered blocks that “The area you are in is considered a dangerous combat zone!”
- Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated in December 2023 that the IDF “is well aware of the increased number of civilians in southern Gaza,” where it said operations were necessary.
What does NAZA allege about populated neighborhoods?
The 24 Israeli military insiders who testify in NAZA give, The Guardian reports, accounts of “the destruction of neighbourhoods where the Israeli military estimated that up to 25% of residents were still sheltering in their homes.” The allegation carries its own measurement: the military, on the interviewees’ account, knew roughly what share of a neighborhood had stayed.
The directors, as The Guardian quotes them, say their subject is “the orders themselves, the policies, the accepted practices.” The IDF’s own answer of 11 September 2026 is that it “categorically rejects these allegations,” and that “Hamas continues to systematically operate from within the civilian environment, embedding its operatives and military infrastructure among the population and exploiting civilian areas for terrorist purposes.”
The treaty text addresses both halves of that exchange. Article 51(5)(a) of Additional Protocol I treats as indiscriminate “an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects.” Article 51(7) forbids using “the presence or movements of the civilian population” to render “certain points or areas immune from military operations.” Article 51(8) adds that a violation of that prohibition does not release the other side from its obligations toward civilians, including the precautions of Article 57. 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.”
The question in the title therefore has a factual part and a legal part. The factual part is what the IDF knew about who remained. The IDF’s own records answer it more directly than they answer anything else in this dispute, because the IDF describes an instrument built to measure exactly that. The legal part, what was done with the knowledge, is the part the records leave open. The Institute has not viewed the film; its content enters here through its producer’s reporting.
What does the IDF’s sector map measure?
The IDF presentation, its own document, describes a team “led by a Brigadier General, and made up of intelligence experts, Arabists, legal advisers, OSINT specialists and more,” whose mission was “to assess the overall presence of civilians throughout the Gaza Strip.” Its tool was a map of 630 sectors, each with “continuous assessments of the population presence that is there.”
The slide states two uses. Internally, the map was disseminated “so that forces are aware of civilian presence in each sector, as well as the presence of critical civilian sites such as shelters.” Externally, it served as a “‘common language’ tool used to effectively convey to the Gazan population precisely where the IDF intends to operate and where are the safer regions.” The team kept “contact with key communal leaders in those sectors.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry describes what appears to be the same mechanism in its answers on the war, updated to 8 December 2023, under a name the presentation does not use: the “Civilian Harm Mitigation Unit,” made up of senior commanders, intelligence officers, Arabic-speaking soldiers and legal advisers. The Ministry states that the unit “constantly monitors in real time the implementation of these evacuation recommendations, including by using open-source tools such as social media, as well as intelligence sources,” and that “Updated data is continuously fed to IDF air, naval and ground forces operating in Gaza.”
Both documents describe an estimate held per sector, kept current, and passed to the forces that strike. Neither gives the estimate for any sector on any date, and the presentation gives no count of civilians anywhere. The instrument is described in detail; its readings are not published. That is the gap the 25% figure falls into.
How does the IDF tell residents to leave a sector?
The IDF presentation, its own document, reproduces 2 notices built on the sector map: a timetable of daily pauses in the fighting, and an urgent order to leave named blocks. Both address residents by place, which is what the map was built to allow.
The first, in the translation the slide labels “Translated from Arabic by Google,” announces that military activities “will be suspended locally and temporarily from ten (10:00) in the morning until two (14:00) in the afternoon in order to provide supplies” on named days in named neighborhoods.
The notice runs from “Today, Saturday (10/2) in the administrative district in Rafah” through the El Geneina and Al-Salam neighborhoods of Rafah, to “Tuesday (13/3)” for “the Jaffa and Al-Brook neighborhood in Deir al-,” where the slide cuts off. Saturday 10 February 2024 fits the weekday, which dates the notice to the current war; the “13/3” is on the slide and appears to be a slip for 13 February.
The second notice is an urgent warning to seven numbered blocks, among them “Block 2348 in the Al-Shuhadaa neighborhood, Blocks 2325 and 2347 in the Ain Jaulut and Al-Farouq neighborhood.” “The area you are in is considered a dangerous combat zone!” it reads. “For your safety, the IDF appeals to you immediately evacuate from this area and go to the known shelter in Deir al-Balah.” It closes: “He who was warned was exused [sic]!”
The block numbers are the sector map in use. Israel’s Foreign Ministry states that IDF messages “often include detailed information as to when to evacuate (including from specific areas and individual targets), the safe routes to be used, and where aid may be obtained.” The notices record what residents were told, not how many left, which is the number the sector estimate was meant to hold.
How many warnings has Israel counted?
Israel’s Foreign Ministry counted over 15 million text messages sent to Gaza by 8 December 2023, its own figure and the largest of the channels it lists. It counted calls and leaflets separately, and every count covers only the first two months of the war.
The other channels, in the Ministry’s words, were “over 12 million pre-recorded phone calls,” “over 4.5 million leaflets” and over 45,000 individual phone calls “urging people to temporarily leave areas of hostilities and individual targets.”
| Channel | Count to 8 December 2023 | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Text messages | Over 15 million | Messages sent, not people reached |
| Pre-recorded phone calls | Over 12 million | Calls placed |
| Leaflets | Over 4.5 million | Leaflets dropped |
| Individual phone calls | Over 45,000 | Calls about areas and individual targets |
The four channels cannot be added into a number of warnings or of people warned. One resident could receive a text, a call and a leaflet about the same sector, and the Ministry states that the IDF distributed its messages “via multiple channels.” It also states that “communications in Gaza is intermittent,” which bears on how many of the messages arrived.
The 2014 figures in Israel’s May 2015 report on that war, its own account, are smaller and more local. For Beit Lahiya on 13 July 2014 the IDF “dropped 10,000 leaflets from the air” in the morning and “another 10,000 leaflets” in the early afternoon, with recorded calls between 6:15 and 9:15. Before the ground operation in Shuja’iyeh it used “over 150,000 leaflets,” telling residents to go to central Gaza City, within four named streets.
Every count here measures what was sent. None measures who remained. The sector estimates would measure exactly that, and they are the figures no record here contains. Israel’s Foreign Ministry says the mechanism “has proven effective in the current hostilities and has saved many lives,” its own assessment, and gives no figure behind it.
Does a warning empty a neighborhood, in Israel’s own view?
Israel’s Foreign Ministry states in its November 2023 paper on the legal aspects of the war, its own position, that “the IDF does not assume that there are no civilians in areas or sites where advance warnings had been given: strikes in such locations, too, are conducted in accordance with LOAC, including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack.”
The 2015 report on the previous war says the same thing twice. “After providing a warning, the IDF did not assume that a relevant site or area had been evacuated,” and “the provision of a warning never, on its own, affected a proportionality assessment.” Civilians who stayed despite warnings, it states, were not regarded “as voluntary human shields and thus legitimate targets for attack,” and the IDF did not “discount such civilians for purposes of its proportionality analyses.”
On Israel’s own stated position, then, a warned neighborhood is still a populated one for the purpose of a strike, and whoever stayed is counted in the expected harm. That is the position the sector map was built to serve: an estimate of how many remained, fed to forces, so that the people who did not leave enter the calculation.
The Foreign Ministry paper also records why some did not leave. It states that Hamas “consistently and forcibly acts to frustrate these efforts, including by setting up roadblocks, threatening civilians not to leave, and issuing calls to ignore IDF recommendations to evacuate.” That is Israel’s own characterization of the other party, and under Article 51(8) of Additional Protocol I it does not change the obligations owed to the civilians who remained.
Whether a given strike in a populated sector breached those obligations is, in Israel’s system, a question for the Military Advocate General’s Corps, which states that harm to civilians, “while tragic and regrettable, in most cases do not by themselves indicate a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct.” The records settle the first part of the title’s question on the IDF’s own terms: it says it knew neighborhoods could stay populated after warnings, and counted those who stayed.
What does the IDF’s strike chart ask about evacuation?
The IDF’s strike chart, in its own presentation, puts 1 question about evacuation, “Area Evacuated?”, with a Yes and a No, as the second of its eight steps. No branch is drawn from either answer; the next steps are “Warning Considerations,” the choice of munition, and three more checks before “Permission to Strike.”
On the chart, then, a No at the evacuation step does not stop a strike by itself, just as a warning does not settle it. The answer passes forward to the other gates, among them “Civilians in Target?”, and to the proportionality assessment that Israel’s statements say governs each attack. The sector map is where the evacuation answer would come from.
Israel’s own statements record occasions on which the answer changed the timing. In 2014, the May 2015 report states, the IDF “delayed its ground manoeuvre in the area of Shuja’iyeh for more than 24 hours in order to facilitate further evacuations of civilians.” In the current war, the Foreign Ministry states, “The IDF has repeatedly delayed intensifying its operations in northern Gaza so as to allow for continued evacuation,” and has “unilaterally established humanitarian corridors and local pauses in the fighting,” of which the Rafah notice is one.
The film’s account is of the other cases, where a sector was, on the interviewees’ telling, estimated to be a quarter full and struck regardless. The Times of Israel reports that the IDF, answering a New York Times investigation in December 2024, confirmed that its rules of engagement changed when the war broke out, while maintaining that its practices stayed consistent with international law.
The dispute over the 500 figure, which the IDF denied on 14 September 2026 ever approving, concerns one strike’s estimate; the 25% figure concerns a sector’s. Both are readings from instruments the IDF describes and does not publish.
What does IDF footage show in areas with many people?
In 3 of the 18 clips of IDF targeting footage provided to the Hanover Institute, the IDF’s own record, operators describe a crowd or an active area: “We detect a lot of people,” “We detected many people there,” and “This is an active area.” The first two end with a munition diverted; the third, dated 25 September 2025, ends “We will not attack.”
- This is an active area
- We will not attack
The exchange of 25 September 2025 is the shortest statement in the set of the judgment the film contests. The subtitles do not say what “active” means, and the clip does not show the area around the target. It records a decision not to strike in a place the operators describe that way, fifteen days before the ceasefire of 10 October 2025.
The other two show strikes redirected for crowds. On 25 December 2024: “We detect a lot of people,” then “Abort, abort. Abort, divert [ammunition].” On 11 July 2025: “Wait, we are diverting, guys,” and “We detected many people there, we are diverting.”
- We detect a lot of people
- Abort, abort. Abort, divert [ammunition]
- Wait, we are diverting, guys
- We detected many people there, we are diverting
The clips show crowds as a reason to stop. They cannot show a sector-level decision, because each is a single target seen from above for a few seconds, and they cannot show what happened to the target later or to other targets in the same neighborhood. Two more clips record smaller groups approaching a target, “A group of people approaching” and “People approaching,” and are not counted here. The 18 are a selection made before they reached the Institute, and they are published here exactly as received.
What does Israel say about operating where evacuees went?
Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated in December 2023, its own position, that “The IDF is well aware of the increased number of civilians in southern Gaza, and utilizes the entirety of the measures described above in order to mitigate harm to civilians in these areas.” It added: “It is impossible to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities without operating in southern Gaza.”
The statement joins two facts the IDF’s own records establish separately. The evacuation orders sent people south: the block notice on the presentation’s thirteenth slide directs residents to “the known shelter in Deir al-Balah,” and the Foreign Ministry states that the IDF “has been urging civilians to temporarily evacuate northern Gaza.” Its November 2023 paper adds that the IDF “has designated a ‘humanitarian zone’ in the southwestern part of Gaza.” Operations then followed into the south, as the Rafah notice of February 2024 shows.
The scale of the movement is recorded by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the Palestinian statistics office, which states that of roughly 2.2 million people living in Gaza on the eve of the war, nearly two million were displaced. That is a cumulative figure for the war as a whole, not a count for any one sector or month.
On Israel’s own account, the areas that received evacuees became the areas where civilian presence was highest, and the IDF knew it. The Ministry lists its reasons for operating there: rockets launched from the south, senior commanders directing operations there, military assets, and hostages. That is its own statement of the military advantage it anticipated, the other side of the proportionality weighing the sector estimates were meant to inform.
The Institute’s report on shootings in areas described as safe examines what other bodies recorded in those areas. The IDF records examined here give the warnings and the reasons, and no sector estimate for any place in the south before or after operations there.
Methodology and limitations
This report sets the published account of the documentary NAZA against the IDF’s own records: slides ten to thirteen and eighteen of an IDF presentation provided to the Institute, 18 clips of IDF footage, the IDF’s statements on the film, and the Israeli government’s published statements, principally the Foreign Ministry’s answers on the war updated to 8 December 2023, its paper on the legal aspects of 2 November 2023, and its May 2015 report on the 2014 war. The film’s claims come from The Guardian, which produced it; the film was not viewed.
The presentation is undated. Its Rafah notice is dated to February 2024 from its weekday and dates, and its block notice carries no date. Its notices are quoted in the English the slides supply; the Institute did not retranslate the Arabic. The clips appear exactly as received, with their checksums, and the Institute has not verified when or where they were recorded. A clip counts as concerning a crowd where the exchange refers to “a lot of people,” “many people” or “an active area.”
Every record here except the displacement figure is a party’s own account. The Foreign Ministry’s warning counts are floors and count messages sent. None of the records gives a sector’s population estimate, so none supports a finding about the share of residents present in any neighborhood struck.
Conclusion
The IDF’s own records describe the knowledge the film says it had. Did the IDF strike neighborhoods it knew were still populated? On its own account it kept track of whether they were: a team estimated civilian presence in 630 sectors, continuously, and fed the estimates to the forces that strike. Israel’s Foreign Ministry states that a warned area is never assumed to be empty and that those who stay are counted. It also states that the IDF knew civilians had crowded into the south and operated there anyway, for reasons it lists.
What the records withhold is every reading. Not one sector estimate appears in them, for any neighborhood on any date, and so the film’s figure of a quarter of residents still at home cannot be set against the IDF’s own number. The strike chart asks whether an area was evacuated and draws no line from the answer.
The sector map exists, on the IDF’s own description, precisely so that someone knew how many people were in each neighborhood before it was struck. If its readings for the neighborhoods the film describes were published beside the orders that followed, what would the gap between them measure?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the IDF’s Civilian Harm Mitigation Unit?
Israel’s Foreign Ministry describes it as a unit of senior commanders, intelligence officers, Arabic-speaking soldiers and legal advisers that maintains the numbered evacuation map and monitors evacuations in real time. The IDF presentation describes a Southern Command team of the same makeup led by a brigadier general.
How did Gaza residents know which sector they were in?
The Foreign Ministry states that the numbered map was “shared with the public in Gaza and with international organizations on the ground,” and points to its publication on the IDF website and in announcements on the IDF’s Arabic social media. The notices on the IDF presentation address residents by block number and neighborhood name.
Did the IDF pause fighting to let civilians move or get supplies?
The IDF presentation reproduces a February 2024 notice of daily pauses from 10:00 to 14:00 in named neighborhoods of Rafah and a further one cut off at the page edge, “in order to provide supplies.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry states that the IDF “unilaterally established humanitarian corridors and local pauses in the fighting.”
Does international law allow strikes in areas civilians were told to leave?
Additional Protocol I requires warnings where circumstances permit, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry states that strikes in warned areas remain subject to distinction, proportionality and precautions because civilians may remain. A warning does not turn a populated area into a lawful target on its own.
Where does the 25% figure in NAZA come from?
The Guardian reports it as the film’s interviewees’ account of an estimate made by the Israeli military. No IDF record examined here publishes an estimate for any sector, so the figure cannot be checked against the IDF’s own numbers.
How many people did the IDF’s warnings reach?
No record examined here says. Israel’s Foreign Ministry counts messages sent, over 15 million texts and over 4.5 million leaflets by 8 December 2023, and states that communications in Gaza were intermittent.
Did the IDF delay operations to allow evacuation?
Israel’s Foreign Ministry states that the IDF “repeatedly delayed intensifying its operations in northern Gaza so as to allow for continued evacuation.” Its May 2015 report states that in 2014 a ground operation in Shuja’iyeh was delayed more than 24 hours for the same reason.
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 counts and 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 account.
- Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 2025. A Brief on the Status of the Palestinian People at the End of 2025. Ramallah. https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/en/post-details/?postId=23319. Official record, national statistical office, estimates.
- 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, 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.
- The Times of Israel, 2026. IDF denies claim in new ‘NAZA’ documentary that it planned Gaza strike with 500 civilian deaths. 14 September 2026. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-denies-claim-in-new-naza-documentary-that-it-planned-gaza-strike-with-500-civilian-deaths/. Israeli press, carrying the IDF’s statement.