Microsoft has revoked access to some of its cloud and artificial intelligence services used by the IDF’s Unit 8200 after an internal review found violations of the company’s terms of service, the Guardian reported Thursday.
According to the report, the decision came after revelations that Unit 8200, the IDF’s elite signals intelligence unit, had stored vast amounts of intercepted Palestinian phone calls in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. The surveillance program, which sources inside the unit described with the phrase “a million calls an hour,” allowed intelligence officers to collect, replay and analyze conversations from Gaza and the West Bank.
The Guardian, in a joint investigation with +972 Magazine and Local Call, revealed last month that Microsoft and Unit 8200 began collaborating on the project after a 2021 meeting between CEO Satya Nadella and then-commander Yossi Sariel. The report said that up to 8,000 terabytes of data had been stored at a Microsoft data center in the Netherlands before being hastily moved after publication. Sources said the data may now be shifting to Amazon Web Services, though neither the IDF nor Amazon responded to requests for comment.
Microsoft President Brad Smith confirmed to staff in an internal email seen by the Guardian that the company had “ceased and disabled a set of services to a unit within the Israel ministry of defense.” He added, “We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in every country around the world.”
The Guardian reported that this is the first known case of a U.S. tech company halting services to the Israeli military since the war in Gaza began. The decision follows protests at Microsoft’s headquarters in the U.S. and Europe, led by a worker campaign called “No Azure for Apartheid.”
The revelations come as Israel faces scrutiny at the United Nations, where a commission of inquiry recently accused it of committing genocide in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies. The Guardian investigation claimed the surveillance system had also been used to help prepare airstrikes during the war, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
While the suspension affects some cloud and AI services, Microsoft continues to maintain a broader commercial relationship with the IDF. Still, the move has raised questions inside Israel about the reliance on foreign tech companies to host sensitive military data abroad.