LONDON: Microsoft has cut off access for Israel’s elite intelligence unit, Unit 8200, to its cloud and artificial intelligence technology after an investigation revealed the military agency was using the company’s services to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinians, the Guardian reported.
The move follows revelations that the Israeli military had stored and analysed millions of intercepted Palestinian phone calls through Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.
According to the Guardian, sources familiar with the programme said Unit 8200 had used Azure’s vast storage and processing capacity to operate an expansive system capable of collecting and reviewing “a million calls an hour” from Gaza and the West Bank.
Microsoft told Israeli officials late last week that Unit 8200 had breached its terms of service by using Azure to host a trove of sensitive surveillance data, according to the Guardian.
The data, estimated at 8,000 terabytes, was reportedly held in a Microsoft datacentre in the Netherlands before being moved out of the European Union in early August, after the Guardian’s joint investigation with +972 Magazine and Local Call.
Microsoft vice-chair and president Brad Smith informed employees of the decision on Thursday, according to an internal email cited by the Guardian. “We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians,” Smith wrote. “We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades.”
The Guardian reported that the decision came after Microsoft launched an external inquiry into its relationship with Unit 8200, following the exposé. While the review is ongoing, a senior company executive told Israel’s ministry of defence that evidence supported elements of the reporting, according to the Guardian.
The termination ends a three-year period during which Unit 8200 is said to have used Microsoft technology to intercept, store and analyse Palestinian communications. Intelligence sources, cited by the Guardian, said that the system had also been deployed during the Gaza offensive to support airstrike targeting.
Unit 8200, often compared to the US National Security Agency, has long been central to Israel’s electronic intelligence capabilities. According to the Guardian’s report, the Azure-based system enabled the unit to indiscriminately record and store the cellular communications of millions of Palestinians.
The revelations have fuelled criticism of US technology companies’ role in Israel’s nearly two-year-long war in Gaza. Health authorities in the Palestinian enclave say more than 65,400 Palestinians have been killed since Israel’s campaign began after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, with the United Nations accusing Israel of committing genocide — a charge Israel denies.
The Guardian said Microsoft’s decision was taken amid growing pressure from employees and investors. Worker-led protests at Microsoft’s US headquarters and a European datacentre, under the banner of the campaign group No Azure for Apartheid, had called for the company to end all ties with the Israeli military.
According to the Guardian, Israeli intelligence sources said Unit 8200 has begun shifting its surveillance data to Amazon Web Services. Neither the IDF nor Amazon responded to requests for comment, according to the Guardian.
The decision marks the first known instance of a US technology company withdrawing services from the Israeli military since the beginning of the Gaza conflict. It also raises questions within Israel about the practice of hosting sensitive defence data on third-party foreign servers.
Earlier this year, a separate investigation by the Guardian and partners found the IDF’s reliance on Microsoft cloud services had surged during the most intensive phases of its Gaza campaign. At the time, Microsoft said it had “found no evidence” its technology had been used in violation of its policies.
