Former Hamas Hostage Slams ‘NAZA’ Filmmakers for ‘Degrading’ IDF Soldiers ‘Who Fought to Bring Me Home’
by Shiryn Ghermezian
Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor receive the Special Jury Award for “Naza” during the closing ceremony of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, Italy, Sept. 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Former hostage Eliya Cohen on Monday condemned the Israeli filmmakers behind the documentary “NAZA” for sharply criticizing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers who fought in the Gaza Strip during the country’s war with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and risked their lives to try to rescue him from captivity.
Cohen, 28, was shot in the leg and abducted from a bomb shelter near the Nova music festival during the Hama-led deadly terrorist attack across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He spent 505 days in captivity in Gaza before being released during a ceasefire agreement in February 2025.
In “NAZA,” Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor interviewed 24 Israeli military and intelligence officers and soldiers who accused the IDF of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war, a claim which the IDF has denied. “NAZA” won the Special Jury Award at the closing ceremony of the 83rd Venice Film Festival on Sunday and received a record-breaking 24.5-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the festival two days earlier.
Cohen said in an Instagram Story on Tuesday that he wants to organize a group of people who will wait for Abraham and Szor at Ben Gurion International Airport, upon their return to Israel, and hold signs that condemn “NAZA.” He said he will hold a sign that features a photo of him during Hamas captivity, to remind the filmmakers of what he endured.
In a video posted on Instagram on Monday, Cohen accused the filmmakers of spreading lies about IDF soldiers who fought valiantly in Gaza to return him back home. He said posters should be hung around Israel criticizing Abraham and Szor and did not encourage violence or illegal behavior but called on the public to make it clear they are not welcome in Israel. He also said the Israeli public should spit on them in the street.
“I’ve spent two days seething over this pair who flew to Venice to pick up an award for a film they made about Israel,” Cohen said in his video. He noted that while Israel is a democratic country and freedom of speech exists in the Jewish state, the public should not stay silent about the outrageous claims made in the film. “We need to take to the streets, hang up posters and spread their pictures across every media outlet. When they walk down the street … they should feel ashamed,” Cohen said.
“They can’t degrade the people who fought day after day to return me back home and fought so that our families could live here [in Israel], and they go and spread lies about them, and what, we should let this pass?” he asked, before accusing the filmmakers of inciting antisemitism around the world with the release of their film. “The blood of our friends and of Diaspora Jews is on their hands. Tomorrow, anyone like me and you who goes to Europe and speaks Hebrew will get spat on and beaten up, simply because of these people spreading lies about us.”
In the caption of the Instagram post, Cohen added: “You can talk about pain and innocence, but you can’t make a movie that completely erases what we’ve been through, reverses reality and presents a one-sided story that is cut off from the testimonies of those who were really there. I have been there. This is not a plot and no interpretation, this is my testimony.”
Cohen recently published a book, titled “Mofawadat,” about his experience in Hamas captivity. This summer he married his longtime girlfriend, Ziv Abud, who was with him in the bomb shelter on Oct. 7, 2023, and survived.
Cohen was not the only former Hamas hostage to castigate Abraham and Szor over their film.
Rom Braslavski, who spent 738 days in captivity in Gaza, posted on X saying that the two filmmakers were “traitors” who “should be sent to prison.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu further commented on the controversial film. He, like Cohen, said that “NAZA” will encourage violence and antisemitism against Jews.
“It’s shocking. We are fighting global antisemitic incitement and when it comes from within us it is intolerable,” Netanyahu noted in a video posted Monday on Telegram. “And now two Israeli directors portraying the IDF as war criminals receive applause at the Venice festival.”
Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar threatened to revoke Abraham and Szor’s Israeli citizenship, while Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir said “NAZA” is “based on blood libels, deliberate distortions of reality, and grave, false accusations against IDF soldiers and commanders.”
On Monday, several Israeli directors joined 1,500 members of the film industry in signing a petition that expresses solidarity with Abraham and Szor. The signatories include Ari Folman, Nadav Lapid, Orna Ben-Dor Niv, Hagai Levi, and Shlomi Elkabetz.
