Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft Corporation
Brad Smith, President, Microsoft Corporation
CC: Natasha Crampton, Chief Responsible AI Officer
Dear Mr. Nadella and Mr. Smith,
We are writing in follow up to our open letter of September 26, 2025, regarding Microsoft’s formal review of recent allegations about Israel’s usage of Azure cloud for the mass surveillance and targeting of Palestinians. We were made aware that the law firm retained by Microsoft has already completed its review. Yet, Microsoft has neither released its findings as publicly promised nor responded to our earlier inquiries regarding the steps it has taken — or intends to take — to halt and prevent its contribution to international law violations perpetrated by the Israeli government and its military in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). We, therefore, reiterate our demand that Microsoft immediately publicly disclose the results of its investigation and outline concrete and measurable steps it will implement to cease its complicity in international law violations.
Since October 7, 2023, several UN officials and bodies, international and domestic courts, and human rights organizations have confirmed that Israel has been committing crimes under international law against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Subsequently, Microsoft has been repeatedly put on notice by UN officials, civil society organizations, and its own current and former workers that its past and ongoing provision of cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) services to Israeli authorities and the military exposes the company and individuals within it to potential civil and criminal liability for being complicit in atrocity crimes and serious human rights violations against the Palestinian population, particularly in Gaza. These services include, but are not limited to:
- The provision of Microsoft’s Azure cloud services to the Israeli military intelligence unit, Unit 8200, which has reportedly enabled the storage and processing of vast surveillance data, including millions of daily interceptions of Palestinian telephone communications in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Despite Unit 8200’s established record of intrusive surveillance, Microsoft entered into an agreement with the unit, approved by Mr. Nadella in Seattle in November 2021. Media investigations indicate that Microsoft provided bespoke services, with its engineers — including former Unit 8200 personnel —working directly with the Unit to customize Azure to its specifications, including creating a segregated cloud zone and advanced security measures in preparation to move large volumes of sensitive and classified intelligence data into Azure. As later revealed by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call joint investigation, these capabilities have enabled the collection and storage of surveillance data at population scale, exceeding 11,500 terabytes of Israeli military data by July 2025. Sources within Unit 8200 allege that Israeli authorities have used this data to identify bombing targets in Gaza, including in conjunction with Israel’s proprietary AI-assisted targeting systems. They have also reportedly used such information in the West Bank to blackmail individuals, facilitate detention, or justify killings after the fact. On September 25, 2025, Microsoft announced that it had ceased and disabled certain services to Unit 8200 in response to these allegations after the company allegedly helped transfer this surveillance data from Europe to Israel. However, Microsoft has not disclosed to date which services have been suspended, which remain active, and if so, what measures it has taken to immediately cease, prevent, or mitigate contributing to, or being directly linked to, human rights violations and international crimes against Palestinians.
- The provision of AI services, through its Azure suite, to the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMoD) to support combat and intelligence activities across Israel’s armed forces. This includes the provision of language translation, a speech-to-text conversion, automatic document analysis, and a large language model (LLM). A February 2025 AP investigation reported that the Israeli military used Microsoft’s AI tools to compile, transcribe, and translate Palestinians’ intercepted phone calls, texts, and audio messages collected through mass surveillance, feeding Israel’s AI targeting systems to identify targets and pinpoint locations for military strikes in Gaza. According to leaked internal documents related to the contracts between the IMoD and Microsoft, the translation capability and the LLM accounted for almost 75% of the IMOD’s total usage of the company’s services, while speech and voice services made up the rest. When taking into account the aforementioned disclosure of Unit 8200’s use of Azure to store and process mass intercepted phone calls of Palestinians, these revelations strongly suggest that the IMoD has directly applied Microsoft’s services in support of lethal military operations, including potential integration within Israel’s AI-assisted targeting or “kill chain.”
- While the full scope of Microsoft’s provision of services to Israeli governmental entities remains unknown, further media reports indicate that Azure services have been supplied to multiple Israeli military units. These reportedly include the Air Force’s tech unit, Ofek 324, which manages extensive databases of potential targets for lethal airstrikes; Mamram, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)’s central computing system unit which provides the army’s cloud computing and maintains all of its data centers, including during the Gaza war; the Matspen Unit, responsible for developing the IDF’s command and control systems as well as its AI capabilities and data analysis infrastructure, such as systems deployed in Gaza to manage and coordinate military strikes or to coordinate drone squads used for real-time surveillance, cyberwarfare, and lethal strikes; the Sapir Unit, responsible for setting up and maintaining the IDF intelligence’s tech infrastructure, including in the battlefield; and the Unit 81, a highly classified unit which develops surveillance and espionage equipment for the Israeli intelligence. All these units provide the tech backbone of the Israeli military.
- The maintenance of the so-called “Rolling Stone” system used by the Israeli military to manage the population registry — the list of Palestinians whom Israeli authorities consider lawful residents for purposes of issuing legal status and identity cards — and movement of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
- Running Al-Munaseq application (“the Coordinator” in Arabic) on Microsoft Azure. The app was developed by the IMoD and is used by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (COGAT) to manage the issuing of permits needed for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza for work, commerce, family visits and medical and legal needs. The app has raised serious privacy concerns as it authorizes the mass collection of Palestinians’ data beyond the purpose required for issuing or renewing entry permits. It also helps maintain Israel’s system of apartheid in the OPT, including its imposition of arbitrary restrictions and controls over Palestinians’ freedom of movement.
- Beyond mere service provision, Microsoft has reportedly provided the IDF intelligence units, such as Unit 8200 and Unit 9900, an estimated 19,000 hours of engineering support to guide the IDF’s use of Azure cloud infrastructure during the war.
The scope of these services persuasively suggests that Microsoft’s assistance to the Israeli military has played a substantial role in its military assault on Gaza, enabling the mass scale and speed of its lethal targeting, mass displacement of Palestinians, and widespread destruction across the unlawfully occupied Gaza Strip.
In July 2024, Israeli Colonel Racheli Dembinsky, commander of the Israeli army’s Center of Computing and Information Systems unit (Mamram) confirmed publicly that the use of cloud and AI services provided by tech companies, including Microsoft, has been essential to sustaining the military’s technological infrastructure, including its target database, particularly after reaching full compute and storage capacity at the outset of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza on October 27, 2023. As the colonel stated, Israel’s reliance on civilian cloud providers such as Microsoft enabled “full functional continuity” of Israel’s military operation in Gaza by effectively removing limitations, or any “glass ceiling,” on the expansion of computing power and cloud storage by the army as the war ensued. This is in addition to providing the army access to an “insane wealth of services,” including advanced big data processing and AI-driven analytical tools. She concluded that the IDF’s cloud infrastructure should be regarded “as a weapon for all intents and purposes,” noting that civilian cloud services allow for “very significant operational effectiveness.”
The instrumental role of technology in Israel’s war on Gaza is further indicated by the sharp increase in the Israeli military’s use of Microsoft’s cloud and AI services immediately after October 7, 2023 — combined with reliance on AI-driven target generation and prioritization especially during the early months of the war. For example, the Israeli military’s average monthly consumption of Microsoft Azure cloud storage during the first six months of hostilities in Gaza was reportedly 60% higher than in the preceding four months. Leaked internal documents further indicate that, by the end of March 2024, its monthly use of Azure’s AI tools had increased 64-fold compared to September 2023, and that the volume of data stored on Microsoft servers doubled by July 2024, exceeding 13.6 petabytes.
As evident, these services have continued despite the foreseeable risks of contributing to or being directly linked to gross human rights abuses and crimes under international law; the crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, including apartheid and persecution. As early as January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found regarding Israel’s conduct in Gaza that “acts and omissions complained of … appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Genocide Convention,” and ordered Israel to implement provisional measures to protect civilians that have remained unheeded. In February 2024, a US Federal Court concluded that “the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law.” The ICJ issued additional measures against Israel in March and May of 2024. This was followed by a landmark advisory opinion in July 2024 in which the ICJ determined that Israel’s decades-long occupation is unlawful and breaches Palestinians’ right to self-determination. The court also found that Israel breached Article 3 of CERD which prohibits both racial segregation and apartheid, and committed other serious abuses against the Palestinians, and ordered that states not render any aid or assistance that could help maintain Israel’s unlawful occupation. In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defense Minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
These risks have also been repeatedly brought to your leadership’s attention by current and former Microsoft employees. Yet their calls for transparency — specifically, to audit and disclose all business ties with the Israeli military and government — and to terminate any Microsoft Azure contracts or partnerships that could implicate the company in Israel’s violations of international law, including genocide, apartheid, or unlawful occupation, remain not only unanswered but were often met with reprisal.
In this context, it is imperative to recall that Microsoft’s past and ongoing support and service provision to the Israeli military, intelligence agencies, and other government entities exposes the company and individuals within it to civil and criminal liability for facilitating, assisting, or otherwise being complicit in Israel’s commission of atrocity crimes and serious human rights abuses against the Palestinians across the OPT.
In light of Microsoft’s failure to adequately identify, prevent, and mitigate human rights risks — highlighted by its May 15, 2025 public statement asserting that it found no evidence of its Azure or AI technologies being used to harm people in Gaza, and by its previous insufficient legal reviews of reported harms — we reiterate our call for urgent action.
Specifically, we urge Microsoft to:
- Publish the review findings in full including the scope of the investigation, the specific entities and services under review, and the measures Microsoft will take to address adverse human rights impacts and any future risks related to its business with the Israeli military and other Israeli governmental bodies;
- Suspend all business activities and responsibly terminate relationships with the Israeli military and other Israeli government bodies where there is evidence that such business activities are contributing to grave human rights abuses and crimes under international law; and
- Ensure that any of Microsoft’s tools and knowledge are adequately removed from the sphere of the Israeli military and other government bodies to ensure that any technology that remains cannot be involved in human rights abuses;
- Examine all related contracts with Israeli authorities in light of Israel’s reported crimes under international law, and take measures such as ceasing the direct and indirect assistance, supply, sale or transfer of all AI, cloud infrastructure, IT software and hardware, technical assistance, training and financial or other assistance used to support surveillance, security or military activities, either by Israel or any other state perpetrating mass violations of human rights.
Furthermore, we are still awaiting Microsoft’s response to the following questions, most of which we have already put forward in our previous letter:
- What business ties, if any, does Microsoft maintain with Unit 8200?
- What steps, if any, has Microsoft taken to suspend its business with the Israeli military and other government bodies where there is evidence indicating that business is contributing to or being directly linked to grave human rights abuses and crimes under international law?
- When will Microsoft publish the findings of its formal review as it previously committed?
- What steps has Microsoft taken to thoroughly investigate the use of its technologies by the Israeli authorities in light of its failure to identify and prevent the use of Azure in the mass surveillance of an entire population?
- Has Microsoft conducted, or plans to conduct, a heightened human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, and mitigate adversarial human rights impacts of its services and operations in the context of Israel’s unlawful occupation of the OPT?
- If so, has Microsoft engaged, or plan to engage, with rights holders or human rights experts on behalf of the affected communities for the purpose of its review?
- In accordance to your policy outlined in your 2025 Responsible AI Transparency Report, has Microsoft applied any limited access restrictions to its AI technologies shown to have been used by the IDF and Israeli government to commit genocide and other crimes under international law? If not, please explain why. If Microsoft has applied restrictions, how are you addressing any inadequacies of such restrictions?
- In line with your Sensitive Uses review process, will Microsoft evaluate the “high-impact and higher-risk uses” of your evolving AI technology deployed in conflict zones? If so, can you provide detailed reports on such uses in future Responsible AI Transparency Reports?
- How is Microsoft planning to provide effective remedy, including reparations, to Palestinians affected by any contributions by the company to violations of human rights or crimes under international law by Israel?
We request your response to these questions and any other information you would like to provide by May 15, 2026. Beyond this date, this letter will be published alongside your response. Please note that we may publish your response, either in whole or in part, and at our discretion. In the event that you do not respond, we may also reflect this fact in published materials.
Signatories
- 7amleh
- Access Now
- Amnesty International
- Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
- Fight for the Future