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unit 8200
After Anti-Genocide Protests, Microsoft Cuts Israeli Military Off From Cloud Services
"Though a step in the right direction," said one legal advocate, "this is not enough to end Microsoft's complicity in the genocide perpetrated by Israel."
Sep 25, 2025
After multiple exposés and international protests about Microsoft's "genocidal collaboration" with the Israel Defense Forces, the tech giant told employees on Thursday that it cut the IDF off from certain cloud storage and artificial intelligence technology.
Microsoft launched a review last month, after The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call reported that the IDF's Unit 8200 was using the cloud platform Azure to store data from "millions of mobile phone calls made each day by Palestinians" in the illegally occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have killed at least tens of thousands of people over the past two years.
"We have reviewed The Guardian's allegations based on two principles, both grounded in Microsoft's longstanding protection of privacy as a fundamental right," Brad Smith, the company's vice chair and president, wrote to employees. "First, we do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians... Second, we respect and protect the privacy rights of our customers."
"While our review is ongoing, we have found evidence that supports elements of The Guardian's reporting," he continued. Thus, Microsoft has informed Israel's Ministry of Defense (IMOD) of its "decision to cease and disable specified IMOD subscriptions and their services, including their use of specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies."
"I want to note our appreciation for the reporting of The Guardian," he added. "I'll share more information in the coming days and weeks, when it's appropriate to do so, including lessons learned from this review and how we will apply those lessons as we go forward."
Shoutout to the Microsoft worker organizers who have been tirelessly (and often at the cost of their jobs) pushing Microsoft- not nearly enough but just another brick to crumble
[image or embed]
— Molly Shah (@mommunism.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 11:31 AM
The newspaper reported Thursday that, according to a document it obtained, a senior Microsoft executive similarly told IMOD late last week that the company "is not in the business of facilitating the mass surveillance of civilians" and "while our review is ongoing, we have at this juncture identified evidence that supports elements of The Guardian's reporting."
As The Guardian noted:
The termination is the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza.
The decision has not affected Microsoft's wider commercial relationship with the IDF, which is a longstanding client and will retain access to other services.
The outlets involved in the August 6 reporting—and others, including The Associated Press and Drop Site News—have reported on Microsoft's relationship with the Israeli military throughout the year.
Drop Site's Ryan Grim highlighted that the company's decision is "a major victory for dissident Microsoft workers, who have been protesting intensely internally."
Microsoft employees have protested the company's ties to Israel since even before this year's reporting. For example, the "No Azure for Apartheid" petition was written by workers and shared internally in May 2024, to mark the 76th year of the Nakba—which means catastrophe in Arabic and is used to describe the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to establish the modern state of Israel.
No Azure for Apartheid on Thursday called the announcement "an unprecedented win" that "has only been possible because of the sustained pressure by our campaign," but also emphasized that "this action is insufficient."
"Today, on the 719th day of the genocide, the Israeli military, armed with Microsoft technology, is intensifying its genocidal campaign by invading Gaza City, forcibly starving more than 2 million Palestinians, and expanding ethnic cleansing in the West Bank," the campaign said. "By choosing to maintain this deep partnership with the Israeli military, Microsoft insists on continuing to serve as the technological backbone to the ongoing genocide and apartheid. At a time when countries around the globe are imposing arms embargoes on the Israeli military, our demand for a digital arms embargo has never been more critical."
Last month, seven current and former Microsoft workers were arrested after occupying Smith's office in Redmond, Washington, to protest the company's complicity in "the first AI-powered genocide." According to No Azure for Apartheid, the company has fired five employees following protests at its headquarters.
There have also been actions by critics outside Microsoft, including an August demonstration at a data center in the Netherlands.
Sabrene Odeh, community legal advocate at the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA), said in a Thursday statement that "though a step in the right direction, this is not enough to end Microsoft's complicity in the genocide perpetrated by Israel. Tech workers, across the board, have been sounding the alarm for two years with serious concerns over how technology is being used against civilians."
"If Microsoft is ready to end its complicity," Odeh continued, "it must listen to the brave tech workers in its base—who have been discriminated against, let go, and even quit their jobs because they no longer can be accomplices to the crimes Israel is committing—and end all ties with Israel."
CAIR-WA executive director Imraan Siddiqi stressed that it's not just Microsoft, arguing that "all tech companies must completely divest from their activities supporting the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and ensure that their employees who speak up against human rights abuses are protected."
This article has been updated with comment from No Azure for Apartheid.
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Microsoft Workers Arrested After Occupying C-Suite to Protest Israel's Use of Azure in Gaza
"Brad Smith is the face of human rights at Microsoft," said one No Azure for Apartheid protester. "And yet Microsoft every day continues to abet this genocide."
Aug 27, 2025
Seven current and former Microsoft workers were arrested Tuesday after occupying the office of president Brad Smith to protest the company's complicity in "the first AI-powered genocide" as Israel kills and ethnically cleanses hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.
The protesters gathered at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington and declared a "Liberated Zone" inside Building 34, which they renamed the Mai Ubeid building in honor of a Palestinian software engineer killed by Israel in Gaza in 2023. Demonstrators sounded noisemakers, draped banners, and delivered a "People's Court Summons" to Smith. They chanted, "Microsoft, Microsoft, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!"
Seven protesters who locked themselves inside Smith's office were arrested by Redmond police. Other current and former Microsoft workers joined community members at a rally outside the building.
"Microsoft continues to militarize its campus to harass, brutally attack, and violently arrest its workers and community members," No Azure for Apartheid organizer and former Microsoft worker Abdo Mohamed told the Seattle Times.
The arrests came on the same day that Bloomberg revealed that Microsoft asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation for intelligence on pro-Palestinian protesters targeting the company, worked with local law enforcement in a bid to thwart demonstrations, and deleted internal emails containing protest details and words like "Gaza."
Tuesday's action followed a protest last week at which around 20 No Azure for Apartheid activists were arrested after setting up an encampment on the grounds of Microsoft headquarters. Earlier this month, protesters staged a demonstration at a Microsoft data center in the Netherlands that is reportedly being used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to plan airstrikes on Gaza.
The No Azure for Apartheid protesters are calling on Microsoft to "cut ties with Israel, call for an end to the genocide and forced starvation, pay reparations to the Palestinians, and end the discrimination against workers."
"We are here because Palestine must be free, the genocide must end, the apartheid must end, and everything that's happened to the Palestinian people over the past 75 years must end," declared one No Azure for Apartheid organizer in a video of Tuesday's occupation that was posted online. "It must end and this is how we must end it. We must occupy the people who are letting it happen."
"We are here today not because we want to be here, it's because we need to be here," he said. "Brad Smith is the face of human rights at Microsoft. And yet Microsoft every day continues to abet this genocide."
"Every Palestinian phone call in the last few years has been stored on Microsoft servers," he continued as the other protesters shouted, "Shame!"
"That is a disgrace! That is untenable! There is no way to justify that," the protester asaid. "Every time we have come with these problems... Microsoft has dragged their feet."
The activist also pointed to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the IDF's largest intelligence unit.
"Satya has dragged his feet. Brad has dragged his feet. Satya met with the head of Unit 8200 and that led to this plan to store Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft servers," he said.
A a joint investigation published earlier this month by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call revealed that Unit 8200 is storing 11,500 terabytes of data containing roughly 200 million hours of Palestinians' phone call recordings on the Azure servers in the Netherlands. According to the article, former Unit 8200 head Yossi Sariel traveled to Microsoft headquarters in 2021 to meet Nadella.
"What happens as a result is that every phone call is recorded, it is transcribed from Arabic, it is translated, and it is used for targeting," the protester said.
Earlier this year, an Associated Press investigation detailed how Israeli forces are using artificial intelligence and cloud computing systems sold by US tech giants including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Open AI—which makes the popular ChatGPT chatbot—for the mass surveillance and killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
In addition to US tech, the IDF uses its own AI system called Habsora to automatically select airstrike targets at an exponentially faster rate than ever before. A November 2023 investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call cited an Israeli intelligence source who said that Habsora has transformed the IDF into a "mass assassination factory" in which the "emphasis is on quantity and not quality" of kills.
Following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, IDF officers were told they could order any number of strikes as they believed were legal, with no effective limits on civilian harm. This led to massacres in which dozens or more civilians were killed in single strikes, often using US-supplied 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs.
Microsoft said earlier this month that it has launched an investigation into how Unit 8200 is using Azure. This, after the company said in May that an internal review "found no evidence to date that Microsoft's Azure and [artificial intelligence] technologies have been used to target or harm people in the conflict in Gaza."
Big Tech's profiteering from Israel's annihilation of Gaza and occupation, settler colonization, and apartheid in the West Bank has sparked numerous protests, including by employees of complicit companies. At least dozens of workers at companies including Google, Meta, and Microsoft have been fired for Palestine advocacy. Others have resigned in protest.
Hossam Nasr, a former Microsoft software engineer, was fired after organizing an October 2024 "No Azure for Apartheid" vigil. Microsoft engineer Ibtihal Aboussad and another worker, Vaniya Agrawal, were fired after interrupting speeches by company executives.
Responding to Tuesday's protest, Smith said, "Obviously, when seven folks do as they did today—storm a building, occupy an office, block other people out of the office... that's not okay."
"There are many things we can't do to change the world, but we will do what we can and what we should," Smith added. "That starts with ensuring that our human rights principles and contractual terms of service are upheld everywhere, by all of our customers around the world."
Tuesday's protest came as the IDF ramped up Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—the US-backed campaign to conquer and occupy Gaza and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians—and amid a worsening famine that has killed hundreds of people, many of them children.
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Protesters Target Dutch Microsoft Data Center for 'Genocidal Collaboration' With IDF
"Microsoft stores thousands of terabytes of surveillance data from the Israeli intelligence service Unit 8200—data that is used to oppress, imprison, and murder innocent Palestinians."
Aug 11, 2025
Protesters staged a demonstration Sunday at a Microsoft data center in the Netherlands following last week's revelation that the facility is being used by the Israel Defense Forces to plan genocidal airstrikes in Gaza and to store massive amounts of intelligence on Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories.
Members of the direct action group Geef Tegengas (Push Back) led the demonstration at Microsoft's data center near the northwestern city of Middenmeer. Some activists scaled the roof of a building and lit flares, while others locked themselves to poles and blocked an entrance to the facility.
On its Instagram page, Geef Tegengas said it was targeting "genocide in our backyard."
"Microsoft stores thousands of terabytes of surveillance data from the Israeli intelligence service Unit 8200—data that is used to oppress, imprison, and murder innocent Palestinians," the group said. "Thanks to its Azure cloud service, Microsoft plays a direct role in the genocide of the people of Gaza."
Geef Tegengas demanded that Microsoft "remove all Israeli intelligence data" and urged employees at the facility to "lay down your work."
The group also called on people to boycott Microsoft and support the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel.
"We will continue to take action until this genocidal collaboration stops," Geef Tegengas vowed.
Sunday's demonstration followed the publication last week of a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call revealing that Unit 8200, the largest unit in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is storing 11,500 terabytes of data containing roughly 200 million hours of Palestinians' phone call recordings on the Azure servers in the Netherlands.
According to the investigation—which involved interviews with 11 Microsoft and Israeli intelligence sources and a cache of leaked company documents—former Unit 8200 head Yossi Sariel traveled to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington in the United States in 2021 to meet CEO Satya Nadella.
Sniffing a lucrative opportunity, Nadella agreed to grant the cyberwarfare unit access to a special area of the Azure cloud platform. The project's goal was storing "a million calls per hour."
An intelligence source said that some of the Microsoft employees involved in the undertaking were Unit 8200 veterans, making collaboration "much easier."
One leaked Microsoft document showed that company leaders embraced the IDF partnership as "an incredibly powerful brand moment."
Microsoft responded to the investigation by claiming that Nadella was unaware of exactly what kind of data Unit 8200 was storing on the company's servers.
Three Unit 8200 sources told The Guardian that Azure has facilitated IDF airstrikes on Gaza, where 674 days of U.S.-backed IDF bombing, invasion, and siege have left at least 229,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing amid a worsening famine and the specter of ethnic cleansing and full Israeli occupation.
Israel's conduct in the war is the subject of an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. The International Criminal Court, also located in the Dutch city, last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
Microsoft said Monday that it has launched an investigation into how Unit 8200 is using Azure. This, after the company said in May that an internal review "found no evidence to date that Microsoft's Azure and [artificial intelligence] technologies have been used to target or harm people in the conflict in Gaza."
A Microsoft spokesperson said Monday that the company "takes these allegations seriously, as shown by our previous independent investigation."
"As we receive new information, we're committed to making sure we have a chance to validate any new data and take any needed action," the spokesperson added.
The Guardian reported Monday that the news outlets' investigation prompted debate last week in the Staten-Generaal, the Dutch Parliament, where Christine Teunissen of the left-wing Party for the Animals pressed the government on what it is doing to prevent data stored in the Netherlands from "being used to commit genocide" in Gaza.
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp replied that he would "request further investigation."
"If there are serious indications of criminal offenses in that information, legal proceedings can of course be initiated, and that is then up to the public prosecution service," he said.
The Guardian/+972 Magazine/Local Call investigation follows last month's revelation by the latter two outlets that the IDF has undertaken a "dramatic increase in the purchase of services from Google Cloud, Amazon's AWS, and Microsoft Azure."
Big Tech's profiteering from Israel's annihilation of Gaza and occupation, settler colonization, and apartheid in the West Bank has sparked numerous protests, including by employees of complicit companies. At least dozens of workers at companies including Google, Meta, and Microsoft have been fired for Palestine advocacy. Others have resigned in protest.
Hossam Nasr, a former Microsoft software engineer, was fired after organizing an October 2024 "No Azure for Apartheid" vigil for Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Nasr told The Guardian after his termination that he was fired "simply because we were daring to humanize Palestinians, and simply because we were daring to say that Microsoft should not be complicit with an army that is plausibly accused of genocide."
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