The joint investigation cites anonymous sources at Microsoft and in Israeli intelligence.
An investigation by The Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has sought to lay out the specific relationship between tech giant Microsoft and the Israeli military, which has faced international condemnation over its ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed over 60,000 people, including thousands of children.
In April and May, Microsoft employees staged public protests over the company’s supply of Azure Cloud services to the Israeli military. The BDS movement has called for a boycott of Xbox, Game Pass, and Microsoft-published games to pressure the company to end its relationship with the Israeli military. It wasn’t entirely clear, however, what specific role Microsoft’s services were playing, and in July, a group of 60 shareholders called on the company to explain itself.
« In the face of serious allegations of complicity in genocide and other international crimes, Microsoft’s [human rights due diligence] processes appear ineffective », the group said.
The new independent report cites interviews with 11 sources from Microsoft and the Israeli military surveillance agency, Unit 8200, alleging that Microsoft provides a customized, specialized subset of Azure to store data from a dragnet of intercepted telecommunications in Gaza and The West Bank, amounting to millions of text messages and full phone conversations.
