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<\/a><\/p>\nThe Microsoft logo can be seen on the Microsoft Deutschland GmbH headquarters building in Munich. (Matthias Balk\/picture alliance via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In doing so, the company becomes the first U.S. tech giant to penalize Israel amid its war in Gaza \u2014and follows demands from pro-Palestinian activists.<\/p>\n
The termination of the Israeli military\u2019s access to Microsoft\u2019s Azure cloud platform comes a month after an investigation by three media companies on two continents revealed that Unit 8200, the military\u2019s elite spy agency, had used the technology to conduct a mass surveillance program on Palestinians.<\/p>\n
The investigation was published jointly by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile our review is ongoing, we have at this juncture identified evidence that supports elements of the Guardian\u2019s reporting,\u201d wrote a senior Microsoft executive in a letter to Israel\u2019s ministry of defense last week, according to the Guardian.<\/p>\n
The executive told Israel officials that Microsoft \u201cis not in the business of facilitating the mass surveillance of civilians\u201d and alerted them that it would \u201cdisable\u201d access to services that supported the surveillance program.<\/p>\n
The joint investigation spurred protests at Microsoft\u2019s U.S. headquarters and one of its European data centers. The protests dovetailed with the growing isolation of Israel as some of its strongest allies, including the European Union, move to sanction the country over its conduct in the Gaza offensive.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that the country faced a \u201csort of isolation\u201d over its prosecution of the war in Gaza, adding that they must \u201cdevelop our weapons industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Unit 8200 used its own surveillance abilities to collect the call data, it then relied on the Azure platform to analyze and segregate the information to aid its military campaign, according to the Guardian. The surveillance initially focused on Palestinians in the West Bank, but later expanded to monitoring civilians in Gaza to facilitate air strikes, the news outlets reported.<\/p>\n