Documentary
Gaza – “It was like a video game. Your hormones go haywire”
An AI analysed mobile phone data and identified “terrorists”. These people were killed by drones at night, along with their families and neighbours.
by Urs P. Gasche*
(23 October 2026) The AI is called “Lavender”. It can analyse the phone connections and calls of all mobile phone users in Gaza and, using an algorithm, identify who belongs to the terrorists.
(Picture infosperber)
Because the Israeli army considers it highly likely that the targeted individuals are in their private homes at night, their flats or blocks of flats were bombed and destroyed by drones at the touch of a button. Their wives, children and neighbours were also swept to their deaths as “collateral damage”.
This is corroborated by anonymised statements from 24 members of the Israeli military and intelligence services, who were interviewed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor for their documentary film “NAZA”.1 “NAZA” is a Hebrew military acronym for Nezek Agavi (נזק אגבי), meaning “collateral damage” in English. It refers to damage caused to civilians or civilian objects during an attack on a military target.“NAZA” was first screened in Switzerland at the end of September at the Zurich Film Festival. The film is currently showing in major Swiss cities.
Before the war began in October 2023, Hamas in Gaza had between 20,000 and 25,000 armed fighters, according to a US estimate published by Reuters. To kill one of them, the Israeli army – depending on the presumed rank of the target – accepted between a dozen and over a hundred civilian deaths as collateral damage, at least in the initial phase of the war.
This was not only attested to by the soldiers and intelligence officers in the documentary but had already been stated by witnesses to the Israeli magazine “+972 Magazine”2 two and a half years ago.
Anonymised quotes from the film “NAZA”:
“I can click on a house and see how many people will be harmed if I bomb it. […] You see it like this: flat 6, 5th floor, Ahmad and his family will die.”
“We didn’t even know who the targets were,” says one interviewee, who triggered bombing runs from a computer. One of his targets, he says, turned out to be an 80-year-old woman.
“It’s like a video game – that’s what everyone said. […] Your hormones go haywire. […] We were all really into it. […] It was crazy fun.”
“I’m just a small cog in the machine. If it hadn’t been me, someone else would have done it. All I can say is that we completed the mission. My role was purely technical and had nothing to do with moral issues.”
“I’d always wondered how the Germans could live with what they had inside them. Today I understand it. But what does that make of me? […] I took part in a genocide.”
* * *
Israeli army denies claims: “NAZA contains fundamental errors”
On 29 September, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) accused the filmmakers3 of misrepresenting the number of civilian casualties, the rules of engagement and the use of AI. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the film “shocking” and said: “We combat anti-Semitic incitement worldwide, but when it comes from within our own ranks, it is intolerable.”4
| * Urs Paul Gasche, born in Basel in 1945, is a Swiss journalist, columnist and former television presenter. From 1986 to 1996, he directed and presented the consumer protection television programme “Kassensturz”. Prior to that, he was editor-in-chief of the “Berner Zeitung”. Today, U. P. Gasche is a freelance columnist and editor of the online newspaper “Infosperber”. He is president of the Swiss Foundation for the Promotion of Independent Information (SSUI) and the author of several books. |
Source: https://www.infosperber.ch/politik/welt/es-war-wie-ein-videospiel-deine-hormone-drehen-durch/, 10 October 2026
(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)
1 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAZA_(Film)