The report’s findings sent shockwaves globally, especially among technology experts due to its scale.
Israel has reportedly used Microsoft’s cloud technology to store and analyse millions of Palestinians’ daily phone calls in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, a new probe revealed.
The Guardian published the findings of the investigation on Wednesday, which it conducted along with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and Hebrew outlet Local Call.
The findings came after analyses of leaked Microsoft documents and interviews with 11 sources from the company and Israeli unit.
The investigation uncovered details of a 2021 meeting between Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella and Yossi Sariel, then-commander of Israel’s military surveillance agency Unit 8200, at the company’s headquarters in the United States.
Sariel reportedly sought Nadella’s support to access “a customised and segregated area within Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform”.
The system, launched in 2022, aimed at collecting and storing recordings of millions of daily phone calls by Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Three Unit 8200 sources said that the platform also helped preparations for military operations in Gaza and the West Bank. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, primarily women and children.
A source from the unit revealed that the phone calls were used to “research and identify bombing targets in Gaza” and justify the detention of Palestinians.
“When they need to arrest someone and there isn’t a good enough reason to do so, that’s where they find the excuse,” one source said, as quoted by The Guardian.
By July, 11,500 terabytes of Israeli military data was held in Microsoft’s Azure servers in the Netherlands, whereas some others were stored in Ireland, the leaked files suggested.
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was unaware of the type of data stored, maintaining that the “engagement with Unit 8200 has been based on strengthening cybersecurity and protecting Israel from nation state and terrorist cyber-attacks”.
The spokesperson added that the meeting between Sariel and Nadella did not discuss the data unit’s content. They noted that it “is not accurate” to say the Microsoft CEO supported the project.
‘Cloud services for genocide’
The report’s findings sent shockwaves globally, especially among technology experts due to its scale.
“We’re talking about millions of hours of phone calls and I think it’s the fact that this data is being mined for the use in occupation and apartheid[…]Microsoft is literally providing cloud services for genocide,” Dr. Marc Owen Jones, Qatar-based disinformation expert, told Doha News on Thursday.
Jones, the author of “Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East”, pointed to Israel’s heavy reliance on tech giants and external actors to target Palestinians.
“They sort of think ‘if we can use technology to oppress Palestinians, it’s going to be one easier for us, two cheaper for us, and it’s also going to look less barbaric traditionally’,” Jones said.
The latest probe echoed previous findings by The Guardian in January, where it found Israel used Microsoft’s technology during the war in the Gaza Strip.
In May, former Microcost employee, Ibtihal Aboussad, disrupted a keynote speech by Nadella to call out the company’s support for Israel and was later fired.
Microsoft conducted a review during the same month where it said it “found no evidence” that its “Azure and AI technologies have been used to target or harm people in the conflict in Gaza”.
Jones also highlighted the fact that Microsoft claimed it was unaware of the type of date stored by Israel on its systems.
“What I find very striking about this is that Microsoft claimed to be ignorant of what the Israelis were storing on their data[…]I think you have to assume based on due diligence, based on the fact that it’s been known and it’s very clear what Israel had been doing for decades,” he explained.
Microsoft has been among the top tech companies on the list of boycotted entities for backing the occupation of Palestine and the genocide in the Gaza Strip.
However, Israel is no stranger to deploying technology in targeting Palestinians, pro-Palestine figures or breaching data. One major example is the Pegasus spyware, which Israeli cyber company, NSO Group, had developed.
Jones noted that the difference between Pegasus and Microsoft is that the former “is explicitly designed to illicitly and illegally compromise” mobile phones.
“Microsoft offers so many other services that I think in the public eye, it’s far easier to see the benefits and the good products created by Microsoft do on a global scale,” he added.
The expert also pointed to the power of tech companies and the possible change that could happen from within to combat them.
“Rich companies are not just rich, they’re powerful, they have political influence and also the fact that they’re so necessary to the global digital infrastructure means it’s very hard for there to be a way of trying to combat them,” Jones said.
“I think at some point, if public opinion is strong enough, it will also be reflected in people who get recruited into these companies,” he added.
