Al Jazeera Uncovers Fake View Count for Israel's Counter-Film

An Al Jazeera investigation has uncovered flaws in claims that an Israeli counter-film to the acclaimed documentary NAZA reached more than 44 million views. By examining domain databases, web archives, source code and three independent traffic analytics tools, the investigation exposed the staged figures that official Israeli entities used to promote the film.

The award-winning original NAZA is based on testimony from 24 anonymous whistleblowers in the Israeli military, who allege the army used an artificial intelligence targeting system to kill large numbers of civilians in Gaza. The film takes its name from the Israeli military term for expected civilian casualties in airstrikes. After winning a special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival and receiving a historic 25-minute standing ovation, the film was slated for release in 56 countries.

Official backlash

The original film's success triggered a political storm in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the chief of staff, the head of Shin Bet and the attorney general to open a comprehensive investigation into those involved and to prosecute them for information-security violations.

The two directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, were accused of treason, and Netanyahu and Culture Minister Miki Zohar threatened to revoke their Israeli citizenship.

A network of domains

In response to the film's global resonance, opponents produced a counter-film. On Sept. 16, just days after NAZA premiered, the domain nazadocumentary.com was registered through Cloudflare with hidden ownership details.

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine shows the site initially posed as NAZA's official website, listing the directors' names along with screening and press information. However, it described the film as exposing the system behind the calculated mass killing of terrorists in Gaza. By Sept. 30, the misleading page had disappeared, replaced by a new title: 'NAZA: The Real Story'.

The people behind the 49-minute counter-film are Ariel Averbuch, Roy Danino and Hagai Gutman, who say the work was self-funded. Two more domains, whatisnaza.com and watchnaza.com, were later registered to redirect users to the counter-film.

A fake counter

By the morning of Oct. 14, a counter on the nazadocumentary.com website displayed 43,758,421 views without disclosing the source of the figure or how it was calculated.

Public platforms tell a completely different story. The full 49-minute version of the film on the official YouTube channel had not surpassed 130,000 views as of the same day. That means the website counter showed roughly 336 times the actual view count. The YouTube channel had fewer than 2,000 subscribers, and the film's X account had only 170 followers.

Independent traffic analytics platforms confirmed the discrepancy. U.S.-based Semrush estimated total website visits at around half a million as of Oct. 8. Similarweb, founded by Israelis, estimated just 326 visits in September. Moreover, the film's domains do not appear in the Tranco list of the world's one million most-visited domains.

Data from web analytics platform Semrush showed that 80% of the website's initial visits came from Israel. Semrush analysis also showed that direct links were the main source of traffic to the Israeli counter-film's website in October.

Discrepancies and source code

An examination of the page's source code showed that the element displaying the huge number was tagged internally as 'visitors' but shown to users as 'views'. The figure was transmitted directly from the page's server, making the calculation method invisible from the outside. When the page loads, the counter starts at 97% of its value and counts up over three seconds, creating the illusion of a live counter.

The page also collects actual viewing data without disclosing it, sending a 'watch-tracker' file after about 25 seconds of video playback to identify the viewing session and the portion watched, leaving open the question of whether the counter is based on this data.

State-level promotion

Despite the apparently staged metrics, official Israeli accounts led the promotion of the counter-film. The Israeli Embassy in Washington promoted the film on social media on Oct. 3.

Tzipi Hotovely, head of Israel's National Public Diplomacy Directorate, presented certificates of recognition to the three creators for countering the original film. Hotovely said the film had reached tens of millions of views, turning an unsupported, staged figure into an official position.

The elaborate digital campaign unfolded against the backdrop of Israel's war in Gaza, which began in October 2023. Since the conflict began, Israel has killed at least 74,000 Palestinians, including at least 21,000 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.