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Microsoft is under fire for supplying AI and cloud services to “Israel” amid the war on Gaza, raising legal concerns over its role in war crimes and surveillance.
As it prepares for its annual shareholders meeting on December 5, Microsoft is facing growing scrutiny over its ties to the Israeli military, ScheerPost reported. Human rights advocates accuse the tech giant of supplying services that enable “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
An international coalition of legal aid groups published an open letter on December 2, warning that Microsoft and its leadership may be legally liable for “aiding and abetting … atrocity crimes” committed by “Israel” against Palestinian civilians.
“Over the last few months, it has become exceedingly clear that Microsoft’s services and technologies have been used to violate Palestinian human rights,” said Eric Sype, US national organizer at 7amleh–The Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, in a statement.
The legal aid coalition claims Microsoft has provided “major services” to Israeli ground, air, and naval forces, including Mamram, the military’s central computing system, referred to as a “weapons platform”. Mamram reportedly received rapid support from Microsoft in the early stages of the genocide to maintain operational stability.
Gearóid Ó Cuinn, director of the Global Legal Action Network, stated that European infrastructure, including Microsoft systems, powers “Israel’s” military targeting. “European law is explicit: if your systems materially enable atrocity crimes or unlawful population-level surveillance, you inherit serious legal exposure.”
Microsoft’s role in AI-powered military operations
According to reports, Big Tech products are so integrated into the occupation of Palestine that many observers describe the destruction in Gaza as the world’s first “AI-powered genocide”. Microsoft has been singled out for its role in supporting surveillance, cloud computing, and military infrastructure that facilitated this devastation.
The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call revealed in August that a notorious Israeli cyberwarfare unit used Microsoft’s Azure cloud services to collect and store audio surveillance from Palestinians. The scale of the surveillance is believed to be among the most intrusive ever deployed on a civilian population.
After internal protests and media exposure, Microsoft blocked the unit’s access to Azure. However, the company continues to provide cybersecurity support to “Israel” and its allies in the region.
Shareholder, human rights pressure mounts
Microsoft shareholders are also pushing back. Norway’s $2.1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, one of the largest shareholders, announced that a resolution would be introduced at the annual meeting calling for a report on the company’s operations in high-risk human rights zones. While “Israel” is not named explicitly, the proposal demands transparency regarding the impact of Microsoft products on human rights.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other global NGOs previously urged Microsoft to “suspend business activities” contributing to “grave human rights abuses and international crimes by the Israeli military.”
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and “Israel” faces genocide charges at the UN’s International Court of Justice.
Internal reviews and employee activism
Following internal backlash, Microsoft conducted a review and admitted that the surveillance of civilians violated its own terms of service. Brad Smith, the company’s Vice Chair and President, said in a memo that mass surveillance operations in Gaza breached privacy protections. As a result, Microsoft terminated the cyberwarfare unit’s access to its services.
Smith clarified, however, that the decision “does not impact the important work that Microsoft continues to do to protect the cybersecurity of Israel and other countries in the Middle East.”
Employee advocacy groups, such as No Azure for Apartheid, continue to call for a full end to Microsoft’s AI and cloud contracts with “Israel”. The group is also demanding protection for pro-Palestine speech within the company and greater support for Arab and Muslim employees.
A video posted by the group showed police dispersing a peaceful protest held by employees outside a Microsoft conference on November 23.
Broader pattern of Big Tech involvement
Microsoft is not alone. Google and Amazon workers have protested Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with “Israel” for cloud and AI infrastructure. A report by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese listed over 60 companies, including Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft, as complicit in “Israel’s” policies in Gaza and the West Bank.
“As revealed by employee activists, journalists, and others, Israel’s genocide would be impossible without private Big Tech firms equipping the Israeli military with everything from cloud storage to surveillance technology,” said Bassel El-Rewini, human rights fellow at the Abolitionist Law Center.
Source: Al Mayadeen English