The Import of Microsoft Halting Services to Israeli Military Unit

Last May, Joe Lopez, an engineer with Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, interrupted CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote speech at the company’s annual developer conference. “Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?” and “How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?” Visuals of the incident that went viral showed him yelling. Security immediately led him out of the conference venue. He later lost his job.

This highly charged outburst was not an isolated occurrence. Microsoft employees and activist groups, including the workers’ collective ‘No Azure for Apartheid,’ have been protesting the company’s role in Israel’s siege on Gaza for quite some time. Several of them were fired. The protests, which included disruptions of company events and online activism, were fueled by reports of Microsoft’s close ties with the Israeli military.

However, Microsoft never acknowledged its complicity in Israel’s war on Palestine until last Thursday, September 25, 2025. It announced on September 25 that access to a number of its Azure cloud and AI services within the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD) had been revoked after an internal review discovered evidence supporting allegations that these services had been used for mass surveillance. It is likely the first time a major US technology company has severed ties with the Israeli military since the start of the ongoing conflict in Gaza. This shows that the allegations made by employees such as Joe Lopez were not without merit.

This action came after a company review prompted by an investigation published by The Guardian and other news outlets on August 6. Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, in a communication to employees, stated that the company’s “standard terms of service prohibit the use of our technology for mass surveillance of civilians.”

At the same time, Smith emphasised the action’s limited scope. The decision has no bearing on Microsoft’s critical work to protect Israel’s and other Middle Eastern countries’ cybersecurity, he said. An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, reportedly downplayed the impact, asserting that the move wouldn’t harm the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) operational capabilities. ‘No Azure for Apartheid’ hailed the service cut-off as a significant victory but pledged to continue campaigning until Microsoft’s entire contract with the IDF is terminated.

Microsoft and Israel: A Long-standing Partnership

The Guardian investigation, along with that of the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, highlighted that Microsoft’s partnership with Israel was not only a long-standing one but also showed how advanced information technology of Microsoft had become a tool for state surveillance. Put simply, this revelation was unsettling, point out many activists and industry watchers.

The investigation revealed that the Israeli military’s elite intelligence unit, Unit 8200, established a powerful, extensive surveillance system based on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. It was used to record and archive millions of daily mobile phone calls from Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. The ambitious project was allegedly discussed in a 2021 meeting between the Unit 8200 commander and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

According to the report, the system enabled the Israeli military to archive and analyse everyday communications from the general public using Azure’s massive storage capacity. A significant amount of this sensitive information was stored on Microsoft’s servers in Europe. The intelligence derived from this system had been used to identify and research targets for airstrikes in Gaza and to shape military operations in the West Bank. 

The project’s internal “mantra” was “a million calls an hour,” the report says. Despite its limited geographic scope, it is reminiscent of the United States National Security Agency’s global surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013.

Reports from the Associated Press and Guardian earlier this year revealed how the Israeli military’s reliance on Microsoft’s cloud technology and AI systems increased during the most intense phase of its ongoing military campaign in Gaza. According to the Associated Press, Israel’s military has referred to AI as a “game changer” in rapid operations.

As per the leaked documents obtained by the Guardian, the Israel Defense Forces faced an immediate need for increased computing power and storage following the October 7 attacks by Hamas. This prompted it to rapidly expand its infrastructure using services such as Microsoft’s Azure platform. Microsoft secured contracts for integrating its products across various IDF branches, including intelligence units such as Unit 8200, and at least $10 million in deals for thousands of hours of technical support.

The investigation revealed a significant increase in the military’s use of Microsoft’s services during the war: the average monthly consumption of Azure’s cloud storage increased by 60%, and the use of its machine learning tools, including those based on OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, increased 64 times compared to prewar levels. Microsoft systems were also used in sensitive military applications such as the “Rolling Stone” system for managing the Palestinian population register and Ofek, an air force unit managing large databases of potential targets for lethal strikes.

In May, Microsoft responded to the allegations by stating that it conducted an internal review, supplemented by an external firm. The review discovered “no evidence to date” that its Azure and AI technologies, or any other software, were used to harm people, or that the Israel Ministry of Defense violated its terms of service or AI Code of Conduct. The company has made amends for this stance with its most recent admissions.

Widespread Employee Dissent

Microsoft is not the only tech company where employees are furious about their employers’ involvement in the genocidal Israeli assault in Gaza. Several flashpoints within tech companies have emerged in recent years, emphasising employees’ demands for transparency and control over how their work is used in global conflicts.

Last year, Google faced significant internal backlash and public scrutiny as a result of coordinated employee protests against Project Nimbus. It is a $1.2 billion joint contract launched in 2021 between Google and Amazon Web Services to provide cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli government and military. The protests, organized by the ‘No Tech for Apartheid‘ campaign, escalated following the outbreak of the Gaza war. Workers began to express concern that the technology they developed could be used for Palestinian surveillance, target identification, and other human rights violations.

In April 2024, activists staged a simultaneous sit-in at Google’s offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, including occupying the office of Google Cloud CEO. These actions resulted in the firing of 50 workers.

Amazon employees, who were also organised under the ‘No Tech for Apartheid’ banner, contributed to the pressure, primarily through internal mobilisation and external events. Over 1,700 Amazon employees signed a petition to CEO Andy Jassy demanding the cancellation of all contracts with the Israeli military in December 2023. The petition said that “by providing a cloud ecosystem for the Israeli public sector, Amazon is bolstering the artificial intelligence and surveillance capabilities of the Israeli military used to repress Palestinian activists and impose a brutal siege on Gaza.”

Recently, Ahmed Shahrour, a Palestinian software engineer at Amazon, was suspended for emailing senior leadership and posting on internal communication channels urging colleagues to oppose Project Nimbus. Amazon framed the suspension as a violation of its workplace conduct policy against “discrimination, harassment, or threatening behavior or language.” 

While Google, Amazon, and Microsoft employees protested military contracts, Meta employees protested the company’s content moderation policies and the alleged suppression of Palestine-related posts on public platforms and within their own workplace. Multiple reports, including findings from an external audit commissioned by Meta in 2021, had noted that the company’s policies and enforcement often result in the over-censorship of pro-Palestinian content.

All these protests have challenged the role played by Silicon Valley in global conflicts. By focusing on contracts such as Project Nimbus, they have raised awareness about the material link between major US tech firms and the Israeli government/military. On another level, these actions have also revealed a significant ideological divide in the workforce. Alongside, these actions have also revealed systemic workplace discrimination and a lack of ethical and equitable corporate behavior rooted in human rights and international law.

Political Economy of Tech in Genocide

War has always been a profitable business. In July, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese presented a report titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council. In it she described the situation in Palestine as a “political economy of an occupation turned genocidal.” According to her, this happened because it is profitable for many. 

The report argued that numerous corporations, such as arms manufacturers, tech firms, construction companies, banks, and universities, have benefited from and facilitated decades of illegal occupation and apartheid. They are now actively contributing to the displacement and destruction of Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, through military, economic, and technological means.

Not surprisingly, Albanese’s claim that technology companies profited from Israel’s genocide drew sharp criticism from the tech industry. According to the Washington Post, Google co-founder Sergey Brin described the criticism as “transparently antisemitic” during an internal employee forum. Brin stated that “throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people” and advised employees to be cautious when citing antisemitic organisations like the UN, the report said. 

But the allegation of Silicon Valley involvement in the Gaza conflict is difficult to dismiss. Nowadays, the role of technology in warfare goes beyond traditional weapon systems. Modern information technology, including AI, is fundamentally changing modern warfare and plays an important role in intelligence gathering, decision-making, and high-speed targeting. The Israel Defense Force incorporates cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology such as “Lavender” and “The Gospel” into military operations, improving surveillance and targeting. Systems that use cloud platforms are used to rapidly process massive amounts of intelligence, communications, and surveillance data to identify and recommend tens of thousands of potential targets. 

Big Tech companies benefit greatly from the use of high tech in the war. It is easy to overlook ethical concerns in the face of massive financial incentives offered by lucrative government contracts like Project Nimbus. Such projects provide technology companies with significant long-term revenue streams and defense partnerships. Rising defense expenditures have become a defining trend around the world, with global military spending reaching a record high of $2.7 trillion in 2024. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that enormous cash pie?

Also shifting global power dynamics are pushing tech companies to align more closely with “national interests.” This means they will have to force-fit their mission into the ruling regime’s ideological framework. 

However, widespread employee dissatisfaction in the technology companies has emerged as a powerful deterrent to this trend. This reflects waning public support, particularly among younger generations, for Israel’s unjust war on Palestine. It is a trend the technology industry no longer can ignore. Microsoft’s most recent action on Israel’s mass surveillance using its technology demonstrates this.