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The film review called Bearing Witness is written by Amanda Richer. The photo of her at the entrance of the Cinema SIFF Uptown is taken by Mohamud Yussuf, Chief Editor of Runta News.
I took a big drink of my root beer float and settled into my comfy chair to watch the documentary NAZA. A handful of popcorn while we waited for the main show. As the film began, the theater fell away. I searched every voice on the screen for any sign of sorrow or remorse. I am not sure what I expected, maybe a realization of the magnitude of what they had done.
It’s fun. Like a video game.
These are the words of 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers who speak anonymously in the documentary NAZA. The title comes from their own term for the civilians killed in an airstrike.
For years I and most of the world have watched footage of Palestinian babies, children, women, and men murdered indiscriminately. Amputations and C-sections with no medications. Their pain is palpable even through a screen. There is not enough room in any publication to begin to tell the story of what they have been through.
As I listened and watched the Israeli soldiers discuss the destruction, horror, and inhumane things they have done, tears rolled down my face. The images of the suffering I had seen throughout the years played in my mind while listening, like a reel, over and over. Screaming, pleading for help, starvation. Over and over. I listened as the soldiers discussed what they had done with nothing that sounded like remorse or taking responsibility.
Their voices were matter-of-fact the whole time. “If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else. I just built the tech.” Every answer handed the blame to someone or something else: the machine, the order, the next man in line. Everyone had a reason. No one was responsible.
Naza. They used a number. One strike might be fifteen naza. Twenty naza was normal. Communities, families, a whole life, became a number on a screen.
In the film, a man digs through the rubble, searching for his wife and his son. I wanted to reach through the screen and help him. But what do you say to a man looking for his family in the rubble? There are no words for that. There was no saving anyone there. I could only witness. It wasn’t enough. It can never be enough. A single human cannot carry the pain of the world.
As the movie wrapped up, the chill in my soul stayed. It felt like I was a speck of dust wanting to stop a train. I was angry at my tears. How dare I cry while they are subjected to the worst humanity can do? Especially when I am a citizen of a country that is complicit.
NAZA is expected to be free to watch on the Guardian’s website in mid-November. Watch it. Do not look away. The people of Gaza do not get to look away.
Amanda Richer is a Displacement Consultant and regular contributor to Runta News. She is also the founder of
One Health Clinic www.onehealthclinic.org and Shelterapp, Inc. www.shelterapp.org
