Aug. 21—On August 19, the east campus of the Microsoft corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington became a “Free Zone” after dozens of current and former Microsoft employees protested the company’s enabling of Israeli war crimes in Gaza and elsewhere. The large courtyard surrounded by several restaurants which is especially popular at lunchtime was renamed, “Martyred Palestinian Children’s Plaza,” where employees held signs reading “No Labor for Genocide,” and “Join the Worker Intifada.” The protest was organized by No Azure for Genocide, which has demanded that Microsoft divest from Israel.

While the company still denies any knowledge or involvement with mass surveillance or the targeting of civilians, in late 2021 Yossi Sariel, the commander of the notorious Unit 8200 of Israeli military intelligence, flew to Seattle to meet Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella. According to Israel’s [+972 Magazine](https://www.972mag.com/microsoft-8200-intelligence-surveillance-cloud-azure/), their discussion was on how to move vast amounts of Israeli secret intelligence into the nearly limitless storage capacity of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. At this meeting that took place at the Microsoft headquarters, Sariel won Nadella’s support for a plan that would grant Unit 8200 access to a segregated, secured, and customized area within Microsoft’s Azure system. With this storage capacity and help for AI, Unit 8200 built a powerful mass surveillance apparatus capable of collecting and storing recordings of millions of phone calls and text messages made by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The intelligence stored in Microsoft’s Azure system has helped facilitate deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations, including the targeted assassinations of alleged Hamas supporters.

These employees wrote on their website, “Microsoft has made the active choice to be part of the economy of apartheid since 1991 with its technologies embedded across the Israeli military, prison system, police, universities, and schools—including in illegally occupied settlements. That is a political choice. As it stands today, Microsoft technology powers Israel’s mass-surveillance weapon that collects and stores recordings of millions of mobile phone calls and texts made each day by Palestinians. That is a political choice. Every hour, the Microsoft-powered mass surveillance weapon is used to blackmail Palestinians, place them in detention, or even justify their killing after the fact. That is a political choice. Every day for the past 22 months, the Microsoft-powered mass surveillance weapon has been used to facilitate the bombardment and massacring of Palestinians in Gaza. That is a political choice.”