Israel's military intelligence agency has reportedly been using Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to run a wide-ranging surveillance program of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that has helped shape military operations.
In late 2021, Yossi Sariel, then the commander of Unit 8200, met with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the tech giant's Redmond, Washington, headquarters to discuss storing vast amounts of sensitive intelligence material in the company's cloud, according to The Guardian.
The meeting reportedly resulted in Microsoft building a customized, separate space within the Azure platform for Unit 8200, which then began developing a sweeping new surveillance tool capable of collecting and storing millions of Palestinians' cellphone calls.
The Guardian reported that the cloud-based system became operational in 2022 and allows Unit 8200 to store massive amounts of data for an extended period of time.
Three Unit 8200 sources the outlet spoke with said that the Microsoft storage platform has helped shape military operations in Gaza and the West Bank, including deadly airstrikes.
According to intelligence sources with knowledge of the project, Unit 8200's leaders approached Microsoft after determining that Israeli military servers were not equipped to handle the strain of storing an entire population's phone calls.
Israel has long intercepted Palestinians' phone calls, but its new telecommunications dragnet allows calls made by Palestinians on mobile phones to be played back and captures a much larger pool of conversations.
Several officers from Unit 8200, which is analogous to the National Security Agency, said that the project aimed to capture "a million calls an hour" — an internal goal that became a mantra.
Microsoft engineers reportedly built the Unit 8200 Azure system to the intelligence agency's specifications behind enhanced layers of security on the company's servers. The leaked documents indicate that much of the unit's sensitive data may now be stored in Microsoft's data centers in Ireland and the Netherlands.
The revelations come as the tech giant faces increased scrutiny from investors and employees alike over its ties to the Israeli military and the role its technology has played in the Jewish state's war with Hamas.
In May, a Microsoft employee disrupted a keynote speech by Nadella, reportedly yelling, "How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?"
Following revelations in January about the extent of Israel's reliance on Microsoft technology to conduct the war in Gaza, the company commissioned an outside review, which it said found "no evidence to date" that Azure or its artificial intelligence products were "used to target or harm people" in the war-torn territory.
A senior Microsoft source told The Guardian that the company had stipulated how its technology should be used in Gaza, insisting to Israeli defense officials that its systems were not to be used for target identification.
But Unit 8200 sources told the outlet that intelligence gleaned from the phone calls held in its Azure platform had been used to identify targets in Gaza. One source said that officers would use the cloud-based system to analyze calls made by people in the immediate vicinity of a person they were planning to target if that person was in a densely populated area.
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company has "no information" on the data Unit 8200 stored in its cloud system. The company's "engagement with Unit 8200 has been based on strengthening cybersecurity and protecting Israel from nation state and terrorist cyber-attacks," the spokesperson said.
"At no time during this engagement has Microsoft been aware of the surveillance of civilians or collection of their cellphone conversations using Microsoft's services, including through the external review it commissioned," the spokesperson added.
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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