Fri 26 September 2025:

Microsoft has cut off an Israeli military intelligence unit from its cloud services after discovering the agency was using the platform to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinians, the tech giant said on Thursday.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and Vice Chair, said the company opened the review after an investigation by the Guardian newspaper alleged activity by a unit of the Israeli military.

The investigation said that an Israeli military surveillance agency, Unit 8200, used Microsoft’s Azure to store large volumes of mobile phone call recordings from Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.

“We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades,” Smith said in an email to staff.

Microsoft has informed the Israeli defence ministry 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.”

The action does not impact Microsoft’s cybersecurity services to Israel and other countries in the Middle East, Smith said.

Microsoft’s decision comes after mounting pressure from employees and investors concerned about the company’s ties to Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

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UN report lists companies complicit in Israel’s ‘genocide’

In July this year, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, named 48 corporate actors, including United States tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. – Google’s parent company – and Amazon. A database of more than 1000 corporate entities was also put together as part of the investigation.

“[Israel’s] forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely,” the report said.

“Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation – they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,” it said, in a reference to Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. In an expert opinion last year, Albanese said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel was committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The report stated that its findings illustrate “why Israel’s genocide continues”.

“Because it is lucrative for many,” it said.

What arms and tech companies were identified in the report?

Israel’s procurement of F-35 fighter jets is part of the world’s largest arms procurement programme, relying on at least 1,600 companies across eight nations. It is led by US-based Lockheed Martin, but F-35 components are constructed globally.

Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A is listed as a main contributor in the military sector, while Japan’s FANUC Corporation provides robotic machinery for weapons production lines.

The tech sector, meanwhile, has enabled the collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, “supporting Israel’s discriminatory permit regime”, the report said. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon grant Israel “virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies”, enhancing its data processing and surveillance capacities.

The US tech company IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing the central database of Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) that stores the biometric data of Palestinians, the report said.

It found US software platform Palantir Technologies expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The report said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the company provided automatic predictive policing technology used for automated decision-making in the battlefield, to process data and generate lists of targets including through artificial intelligence systems like “Lavender”, “Gospel” and “Where’s Daddy?”

Albanese’s report said the ICJ’s ruling “effectively qualifies the occupation as an act of aggression … Consequently, any dealings that support or sustain the occupation and its associated apparatus may amount to complicity in an international crime under the Rome Statute.

“States must not provide aid or assistance or enter into economic or trade dealings, and must take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that would assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by Israel in the oPt.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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