Leaked documents show that Microsoft has significantly increased its operations with Israel’s military since 7 October 2023. Independent media outlet Drop News Site obtained documents relating to Microsoft’s support of Israeli military operations. Israeli-Palestinian outlet +97 Magazine, Hebrew language-based Local Call, and the Guardian have reported together on the sum of the leaked documents.
The Guardian reported:
The files offer an inside view of how Microsoft deepened its relationship with Israel’s defence establishment after 7 October 2023, supplying the military with greater computing and storage services and striking at least $10m in deals to provide thousands of hours of technical support.
Cabal of tech support
Israel has had the might of the world’s technology giants supporting its siege of Palestine. Just yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Google provided the Israeli military with its latest artificial intelligence from October 2023. Middle East Eye reported:
Shortly after the beginning of the war in October 2023, a Google employee in its cloud division escalated requests for Israel’s defence ministry to have increased access to the company’s AI tools, according to documents obtained by the Post.
They also noted:
An employee at Google warned that if the company did not give Israel’s military more access, it would risk losing out to cloud rival Amazon.
The latest reporting from the leaked documents paints a similar picture: technological giants rushing to outstrip their biggest rivals for a bigger piece of the military industrial complex pie.
The Guardian reported that whilst Microsoft was disappointed to lose out on certain contracts to Amazon and Google, their importance to the Israeli military remains immutable:
Although undoubtedly a blow to Microsoft’s business in Israel and its place as the IDF’s premier cloud provider, documents suggest the company took comfort from indications from Israeli defence officials that it would continue to enjoy a strong partnership with the military.
The nature of modern warfare means that tech companies are the latest in a long line of businesses fattening themselves on the spoils of war.
What do Microsoft supply?
In short, Microsoft have been supplying the Israeli military with gigantic storage service, 19,000 hours of technical support, and the latest innovations in computing.
The Guardian found that the leaked documents “illustrate how the US tech behemoth supported a range of sensitive activities” including managing the movement of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Microsoft engineers have been providing support to Israel through their analysis of “visual intelligence” – likely the innumerable drones used by the Israeli military. The scale of Microsoft’s support is such that it is providing the infrastructure of genocide, as the Guardian report:
the IDF’s insatiable demand for bombs was matched by its need for greater access to cloud computing services.
This created an opportunity for Microsoft to deepen its relationship with the IDF.
The leaked documents indicate that Microsoft’s cloud storage was used at a rate 60% higher than in the months before October 2023. A “significant proportion” of Microsoft’s AI services were used without an internet connection, with the implication being that these were used “for more sensitive tasks.” +972 Magazine reported that this same use of AI indicated:
the possibility that the tools have been used for operational purposes — such as combat and intelligence — as opposed to simply logistical or bureaucratic functions.
Alarmingly, an intelligence officer who worked for Unit 8200, an Israeli intelligence unit in the IDF, found that Microsoft are:
so embedded that he referred to them as “people who are already working with the unit,” as if they were soldiers.
Agents of genocide
Microsoft are far from the only tech giants enabling the Israeli genocide, as mentioned above. In 2024, one AI database “identified 37,000 potential targets based on their apparent links to Hamas.” The relationship between tech and Israel is one that has huge benefits for militaries in the West also. In November of 2024, Declassified UK reported that the British army:
is now equipped with new Israeli technology being used in Gaza.
The Air Assault Brigade, based in Colchester, has been training with high-tech weapons sights manufactured by Israeli arms firm, Smartshooter.
American tech companies equip the Israeli military, who are then able to develop their military techniques, and these advancements make their way to the British army; and so the cycle continues. Israel is made mightier, and its genocide is unequivocally supported by the most powerful groups in the West, be they political, technological, or otherwise.
Action on Armed Violence reported on leaked documents in October 2024 that revealed “unprecedented insight” into the relationship between the UK and Israel. They found that:
These revelations show that the UK-Israel defence relationship is deeper than previously understood. The document provides evidence of joint interest into hypersonic missiles, loitering munitions, space-based defence systems, and AI-driven autonomous warfare technologies. The presentation also indicates that these systems have been tested in real-world conflict scenarios, particularly in Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
The support of the world
Israel undoubtedly has the support of the most powerful. Since October 2023 they have rained down hell on Palestinians. We’ve all seen the clips of children blown into pieces, of homes razed to the ground, entire neighbourhoods destroyed.
The brutality of Israeli soldiers has been on display, often filmed by the soldiers themselves. This is a military behaving with impunity, knowing that it has the richest and most powerful funding its genocide of Palestine.
These leaked documents contribute to the growing picture of the complicity – and, indeed, culpability, of tech companies in Palestine.
Their continued dominance of the military industrial complex is a tale as old as time: poor people being bombed, starved, and killed in their homeland while fat cats make their next few million.
The workers of these tech companies cannot remain silent. Advancement in technology comes with a cost, and that cost is evidently the lives of Palestinians.
Featured image via the Canary
