Filmmakers to Release Controversial IDF Depiction Online for Free

The creators of a film that has been criticized for allegedly defaming IDF soldiers have announced their decision to make the movie available for free online viewing. Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Shore, in collaboration with The Guardian newspaper, will release the film on the internet without time restrictions in November. This move follows a recent op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal by Omer Shem-Tov, a former Hamas hostage who spent 505 days in captivity. Shem-Tov argued against the film, drawing parallels between his experience and the film's portrayal of civilian casualties during the Gaza war. His article, titled "Hostages like me were also 'NIZA' - collateral damage," posited that if an Israeli bomb had killed him, Hamas would have achieved a double victory: his death and Israeli responsibility for it. Shem-Tov also shared his distress over the film's reception at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Prize. He described the prolonged applause as deeply painful, stating that for him, "these minutes felt like a hail of knives." While acknowledging the reality of Palestinian suffering depicted in the film, he expressed pain that the movie, as reported, did not adequately represent his own experience as a hostage. He further contended that the film fails to provide sufficient context for the events that led to the war, suggesting that in its narrative, he too might be considered "NIZA", collateral damage, a Jewish hostage left to rot in a Hamas tunnel or murdered alongside his friends at the Nova music festival.