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New reports allege that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella personally approved a secretive deal with Israel’s military surveillance unit, Unit 8200, giving the agency a dedicated space on the company’s Azure cloud servers to store millions of intercepted Palestinian phone calls. The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call claim the project began in 2022 and was designed to record as many as a million calls per hour from Gaza and the West Bank, all without the knowledge or consent of the people being monitored.
Sources inside Unit 8200 told reporters that the collected recordings have been used not just for intelligence gathering, but to help plan airstrikes and guide other military operations. Leaked Microsoft documents suggest most of this data is stored in Azure facilities in the Netherlands and Ireland.
Inside Microsoft, the revelations have triggered a wave of dissent. Dozens of employees have signed pledges under the banner “No Azure for Apartheid,” vowing not to work on any Azure contracts connected to Israeli military activity. The movement follows similar protests at other tech companies over their involvement in military and surveillance work.
Tensions spilled into public view in May when Nadella was interrupted mid-speech by a Microsoft employee who demanded he explain how Azure was being used to support Israel’s military actions, which have drawn international criticism for high civilian casualties.
Earlier this year, Microsoft ordered an independent review of its contracts with Israel and claimed it found no evidence Azure or its AI tools were used to target or harm civilians. But the latest reporting directly challenges that conclusion, citing Unit 8200 insiders who say the surveillance data has been used to pick bombing targets in Gaza.
Microsoft continues to insist it has “no information” about the nature of the data Israel stores on its servers. A company spokesperson repeated that it has never knowingly been involved in the surveillance of civilians, pointing to the findings of the commissioned review.
The controversy comes as the Gaza death toll has climbed to around 60,000, including over 18,000 children, according to the same reports. Israel has long controlled Palestinian telecom infrastructure, but this large-scale cloud-based interception represents a far wider dragnet than past practices.
Microsoft is not alone in facing scrutiny. Google has also come under fire after reports that its employees helped expand Israeli government access to AI tools. Together, these disclosures are fueling broader debates about Big Tech’s role in modern warfare and the ethical limits of corporate cooperation with military agencies.