This film rips open one of the most sealed-off military institutions on the planet: the IDF during the assault on Gaza. It drags into the light testimony that was never meant to escape the barracks. IDF soldiers who served after October 7 speak with a rawness that cuts through official propaganda. They recount the bombardments that erased entire neighborhoods, the pressure and confusion inside the ranks, the civilian suffering they could not unsee, and the moments that made them question the morality of the mission they were carrying out.
Directed by Ben Zand, the documentary stitches together rare, unfiltered accounts from inside the IDF and places them alongside the voices of Palestinians who lived through the devastation. Their stories expose a reality that sanitized press briefings and military spokespeople work overtime to bury. The film makes it impossible to pretend this was a conventional war. Gaza has no army, no air force, no defense. The hundreds of thousands of dead women and children are not abstractions or statistics. They are the direct result of a campaign unleashed on a trapped civilian population. Hamas cannot be used as a shield for what happened to them.
This is not a neutral film. It is a record of violence carried out with overwhelming power and almost no accountability. Who are we kidding? It was carried out with absolute impunity.
It is a confrontation with the word the world keeps choking on: genocide. And it is a reminder that the people who suffered the most had no weapons, no protection, and no escape.
It is difficult to watch. It should be. We don't get to be comfortable while Palestinians are still being genocided.
