Microsoft Employee Resigns, Accuses Company of Enabling Israeli Military Surveillance on Palestinians
On June 26, a Microsoft employee known as Noor sent a farewell letter to thousands of colleagues across Europe announcing his resignation and sharply criticizing Microsoft for allegedly aiding Israeli military crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. Noor, who worked as a technician responsible for cooling and power supply at a Microsoft data center in Italy, accused the company of facilitating genocide through its cloud infrastructure. He claimed Microsoft’s cloud services provide the Israeli army with artificial intelligence tools for surveillance, translation, and data search.
Noor highlighted that on August 6, 2025, Microsoft stored 11,500 terabytes of intercepted Palestinian phone calls in its Dutch data center, along with approximately 200 million hours of audio data in Ireland. He described this as one of the largest and most invasive surveillance datasets on a single population worldwide. He also alleged Microsoft supported "Al-Munasseq," a mass surveillance app Palestinians must install to move between areas, hosted on Microsoft Azure servers.
These claims follow a 2023 Guardian report revealing Israel’s Unit 8200 used Azure services to monitor Palestinian phone calls. Microsoft conducted an internal investigation and ceased some services to Israel’s Ministry of Defense in September 2023. However, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties accused Microsoft of approving increased Israeli data access requests after the report and transferring all surveillance data from European data centers before the investigation could proceed.
Noor’s resignation comes amid growing protests by Microsoft employees, including the group "No Azure for Apartheid," which pressured the company to end contracts with Unit 8200. The protests reportedly contributed to the resignation of Microsoft Israel’s CEO. Former employee Nasreen Jaradat claimed Microsoft blocked internal emails containing words like "Palestine," "Gaza," "genocide," and "apartheid." Similar resignations occurred in November 2025 and January 2026 over Microsoft’s cloud services to the Israeli military.
Noor concluded his letter by urging colleagues to investigate Microsoft’s contracts and sign petitions demanding the company sever ties with the Israeli army, emphasizing employees’ responsibility and power to reclaim their work.
