Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote a letter to top-ranking Israeli officials urging a probe into the participants in the anti-Israel film “NAZA,” which debuted at the Venice International Film Festival to great acclaim, garnering nearly 25 minutes of a standing ovation and winning an award.

Netanyahu said that the film “contains lies, distortions and fabrications that portray the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces negatively to the world and cause serious damage to Israel’s standing internationally.”

Addressing IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Shin Bet director David Zini, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, the Israeli premier said that he requests an investigation into the soldiers who participated in the film, citing disclosure of classified information and breaches of the security of a highly sensitive intelligence unit.

He also accused them of defamation and harm to the political and security interests of the State of Israel.

The prime minister also posted a demand for an investigation on social media.

“I demand that the Chief of the General Staff, the head of the Shin Bet, and the Attorney General initiate a comprehensive investigation against the participants in the film ‘NAZA’ and bring them to trial for serious information security offenses, criminal defamation, and harm to Israel’s political and security interests,” he wrote.

Netanyahu charged the film with presenting “a false, misleading, and biased plot that defames the State of Israel and the IDF in the world and severely damages Israel’s standing.”

Previously, the Israeli leader announced the proposal of two bills aimed at those who defame the IDF: stripping them of their citizenship and increasing the ability to be sued twentyfold.

The controversy over “NAZA,” which takes its name from the Hebrew acronym for “collateral damage,” broke out when the film, produced by Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham, debuted at the Venice International Film Festival on Sept. 10 to great acclaim, garnering nearly 25 minutes of applause and winning an award. By contrast, in Israel, the backlash to the film, which claimed that the IDF uses AI to plan airstrikes that maximize civilian casualties, was intense.

Culture Minister Miki Zohar moved to revoke the Israeli citizenship of producers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. The IDF demanded the full release of the film to give the military a fair chance to rebut its claims. And IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir ordered an investigation into possible leaks of classified material used in the film and also declared that legal action against Abraham and Szor was under consideration.

The IDF published a comprehensive rebuttal earlier this month, asserting that no strikes that killed 500 civilians (as has been alleged in the film) or anywhere near that number were ever considered or carried out, that AI was not used for selecting targets, and that the claims made in the film were unverifiable.