The two courageous, young Israelis, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who wrote and directed the documentary film NAZA, which exposes war crimes in Gaza, have been subjected to death threats, accusations of treason, harassment, and calls to revoke their Israeli citizenship. The 80-minute documentary has not yet been released to the public, but won the “Special Jury Prize” at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday. The threats and slanders soon followed.

Miki Zohar, Israel’s Culture Minister, accused the two directors of “treason against the state,” and called for their citizenship to be revoked, according to The Guardian. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, said the military would “not allow IDF soldiers to be made targets through lies and blood libels” and would use “every tool at our disposal” against the film. Yuhuda Schlesinger, a reporter on Channel 14 in Israel said that the directors should be “pursued” or “hunted” by Jews in Israel and abroad. There is a mural in Ashdod with the directors in crosshairs and the word “traitors” written over their images.

At least 43 Israeli human rights and civic organizations have defended the directors and are circulating a petition in their support. The petition states, “We call on the authorities to put an end to the wave of incitement and threats of violence against them [the directors], and to refrain from any action intended to persecute them or their sources. The institutional responses to the film and the threats against its creators are reminiscent of those of authoritarian regimes.”

A second petition, which calls for “freedom of expression and creation,” has already been signed by over 1,000 Israeli directors, who state that they “stand in solidarity with Szor and Abraham.” This petition reads, “In recent days, we have witnessed an unprecedented smear and incitement campaign against the filmmakers, with the line between this rhetoric and physical violence or threats to their lives narrowing rapidly. The primary role of art and journalism is to reflect the society in which they exist, fostering open dialogue and debate, even when facing a harsh reality.”

NAZA exposed the Israeli military’s dehumanization of innocent civilians in Gaza and their systematic targeting and murdering. The title of the film comes from the acronym from Israeli intelligence which describes the number of civilians calculated by an intelligence officer to be killed in any military assault.