The scholars had been protesting in opposition to Google’s Undertaking Nimbus, a tech contract between the search big and the Israeli authorities that’s linked with violence in opposition to Palestinian civilians.
What’s Undertaking Nimbus?
Undertaking Nimbus is a know-how contract between the Israeli authorities and Google and Amazon. It’s price over $1 billion. In Could 2021, Google mentioned the settlement would ship cloud providers to Israeli authorities entities, together with ministries, authorities, and government-owned corporations. The venture was scheduled to run for an preliminary interval of seven years, and the Israeli authorities may lengthen it for as much as 23 years.
A month later, Amazon mentioned the Israeli authorities had chosen AWS as its main cloud supplier, beneath the Nimbus contract for presidency ministries and its subsidiaries.
In 2024, an investigation by Israeli media retailers +972 Journal and Native Name discovered that the nation’s military saved info on servers managed by AWS. That knowledge got here from the surveillance of Palestinians, per the investigation. Sources quoted by the media retailers alleged such info may very well be used to assist plan airstrikes.
Moreover, the retailers reported a rise in Israeli service calls for from Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure since October 2023, as military items sought knowledge storage and AI providers.
Why are protesters in opposition to Undertaking Nimbus?
Undertaking Nimbus has been going through backlash because it was first introduced. In 2021, an nameless letter signed internally by 90 Google staff and over 300 Amazon staff criticised the partnership, per The Guardian. They condemned Undertaking Nimbus and the Israeli army’s killings of Palestinian civilians, claiming that their employers can be “promoting harmful know-how to the Israeli army and authorities.”
The employees claimed that cloud service know-how would assist develop the surveillance of Palestinians, in addition to unlawful Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.
Opposition to Undertaking Nimbus has grown for the reason that Hamas assaults in opposition to Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, adopted by Israel’s airstrikes and blockades in Gaza. In 2024, protesting Google staff even carried out sit-ins at Google places within the U.S. Later, 28 staff had been fired.
Professional-Palestinian protests by staff have additionally taken place at Massive Tech firm occasions, reminiscent of throughout Microsoft’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 2025.
Final 12 months, The Guardian, +972 Journal, and Native Name cited leaked paperwork revealing that beneath the Undertaking Nimbus contract, Israel mandated that Google and Amazon wouldn’t limit how its governmental items used the tech corporations’ cloud providers — even when Israel violated their phrases of service.
Nevertheless, Google has previously confused that Undertaking Nimbus workloads usually are not associated to the army, weapons, or labeled intelligence. Amazon too highlighted its privateness commitments to its prospects.
Which different tech corporations have hyperlinks to Israel?
A Palestinian-led motion, known as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), has recognized massive know-how corporations which have formal contracts with Israel and its army sector.
The BDS web site alleges these corporations “technologically equip the Israeli army with computing techniques in addition to surveillance and communications applied sciences to speed up the genocide in Gaza and automate apartheid within the West Financial institution, together with East Jerusalem.”
In September, Microsoft Vice Chair & President Brad Smith mentioned the corporate had “ceased and disabled a set of providers to a unit inside the Israel Ministry of Protection (IMOD).”
This announcement got here after media retailers The Guardian, +972 Journal, and Native Name reported that the Israel Protection Forces (IDF) was utilizing Microsoft’s Azure to retailer Palestinians’ recorded telephone calls knowledge that may very well be leveraged for mass surveillance and even army motion.
Whereas Mr. Smith mentioned that Microsoft doesn’t present know-how to facilitate the mass surveillance of civilians, he affirmed the corporate’s “essential work” to guard the cybersecurity of Israel and different West Asian nations.
In a conclusion to the exterior investigation that Microsoft commissioned after the Azure surveillance allegations, the tech big mentioned it will implement higher evaluation processes, present extra steerage to staff, and let staff anonymously report potential coverage violations.
The No Azure for Apartheid group, which is made up of Microsoft staff, claimed on June 6 that Microsoft nonetheless allowed the Israeli army and authorities to host different surveillance tasks on Azure.
“Nothing in need of slicing all ties with the genocidal Israeli army and authorities will likely be sufficient. We are going to present as much as escalate, confront, and disrupt in each place, at each second, introduced and unannounced,” mentioned the group.
Printed – June 18, 2026 02:51 pm IST
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