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, the undersigned human rights organizations, are writing with great concern regarding media reporting alleging that Microsoft has contributed to grave violations of international law perpetrated by the Israeli authorities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). We welcome Microsoft’s September 25 announcement that it has ceased and disabled specific Israeli military subscriptions and services, including their use of specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies. We call on the company to immediately end any involvement with Israeli authorities’ systemic repression of Palestinians, cease and prevent further contribution of its products and services to atrocity crimes, including what many human rights groups and independent UN experts have found to be genocide committed against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
An August 2025 media investigation by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call alleged that the Israeli military intelligence unit, Unit 8200, has been using Microsoft’s Azure cloud services to store and process vast quantities of daily intercepts of telephone communications of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Microsoft’s own review found evidence that supports elements of the Guardian’s reporting. The media investigation alleges that Israel’s mass surveillance system, powered by Azure, holds millions of recorded mobile phone calls, with storage amounting to over 11,500 terabytes of Israeli military data by July 2025. According to these reports, sources within Unit 8200 say Israeli authorities have used this data to research and identify bombing targets in Gaza, alongside AI-driven tools used for targeting. They have reportedly also used this information in the West Bank to “blackmail people, place them in detention, or even justify their killing after the fact.” An AP investigation in February 2025 alleged that the Israeli military uses Microsoft Azure to compile, transcribe, and translate data of Palestinians, including phone calls, texts and audio messages, gathered through mass surveillance which, according to internal Microsoft information AP reviewed, is then is cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI targeting systems to pinpoint targets or their location for attack.
Microsoft’s September 25 statement and the aforementioned media reports stand in contrast to Microsoft’s public statement on May 15, 2025, in which the company claimed to have found no evidence that its Azure or AI technologies were being used to target or harm people in Gaza or that the Israeli Ministry of Defense had violated Microsoft’s terms of service or its AI Code of Conduct. The aforementioned investigations also raise questions as to whether and when Microsoft was aware that Unit 8200 was moving large swathes of sensitive and classified data into Azure products and systems since 2021. The investigations also raise numerous concerns about the extent that Microsoft’s technical infrastructure and assistance have been used in Israel’s mass surveillance and target generation systems used in connection with serious violations of international law.
Israel’s extensive and pervasive surveillance of the entire Palestinian population has been instrumental in the ongoing perpetration of the crime of apartheid against Palestinians. Israeli authorities have used the mass surveillance and coercive extraction of Palestinians’ personal data to enable, facilitate, and even accelerate the commission of other international crimes, including genocide; crimes against humanity, including of extermination; and war crimes, including air strikes carried out in violation of the laws of war. Furthermore, data-driven systems and AI technologies have been critical to Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed over 65,000Palestinians, including at least 20,000 children, and destroyed the majority of Gaza’s schools, hospitals, homes and vital civilian infrastructure.
Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which Microsoft publicly endorses, companies have a responsibility to avoid causing or contributing to human rights abuses, and to address risks directly linked to their business operations and relationships. In conflict-affected contexts, the risk of gross human rights abuses is heightened and, therefore, due diligence by business should be heightened accordingly. In June 2022, the UN Development Programme published a guide for companies on “Heightened Human Rights Due Diligence for Business in Conflict-Affected Contexts” (UNDP Guide). According to this guide, conducting heightened due diligence in conflict-affected contexts means businesses should take steps to understand the conflict, identify their actual or potential adverse impacts on the conflict, and act upon those findings. In contexts of heightened risk such as situations of armed conflict, the UNGPs are explicit: Where a business may contribute to an adverse human rights impact, it should take the necessary steps to cease or prevent its contribution and use its leverage to mitigate any remaining impact to the greatest extent possible.
Microsoft has not publicly disclosed whether it has exercised heightened human rights due diligence or sought to terminate its links to human rights abuses. According to media investigations, Microsoft has reportedly expanded its contracts with the Israeli military as it carried out atrocities in Gaza, reportedly providing at least $10 million in products and services, including thousands of hours of technical support to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Journalists say that sources from the Israeli military and Microsoft told them that Azure has supported combat and intelligence activities across Israel’s armed forces, including the maintenance of the so-called “Rolling Stone” system used by the Israeli military to manage the population registry —the list of Palestinians Israeli authorities consider lawful residents for purposes of issuing legal status and identity cards— and movement of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as databases of potential targets for lethal airstrikes used by the Israeli Air Force. Microsoft has allegedly also granted Israeli security forces large-scale access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 model through its platforms, among other AI tools. 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 media reports also allege that the Israeli army had heightened demand for AI and cloud technologies provided by Microsoft during the hostilities. For instance, the Guardian reported that the Israeli military’s average monthly consumption of Microsoft Azure’s cloud storage in the first six months of the recent hostilities in Gaza was 60% higher than in the four months leading up to it. Leaked internal documents suggest that by the end of March 2024, the Israeli military’s monthly consumption of Azure’s suite of machine learning tools was 64 times higher than in September 2023. The AP reported that, according to leaked documents, the Israeli military’s usage of AI capabilities provided by Microsoft and OpenAI in March 2024 was almost 200 times higher than it was the week before October 7, 2023. According to the AP’s report, the amount of data the Israeli military stored on Microsoft servers doubled between that time and July 2024, rising to more than 13.6 petabytes — “roughly 350 times the digital memory needed to store every book in the Library of Congress.”
The allegations in the media reports of Israel’s use of Microsoft’s technologies would indicate failure by the company to respect human rights and uphold its responsibilities under the UNGPs. They would also contravene Microsoft’s own self-proclaimed commitments to advance human dignity and respect human rights across the company’s value chain, operations, and technologies as stated in the Microsoft Global Human Rights Statement. Microsoft, as a founding member of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), has committed to GNI Principles on internet freedom of expression and privacy as a founding member of the Global Network Initiative (GNI). Its responsible AI principles and AI Services Code of Conduct also requires Microsoft’s customers to prohibit using “[your] AI services in ways that inflict harm on individuals, organizations, or society, or affects individuals in any way that is otherwise prohibited by law.”
Given Unit 8200’s documented history of intrusive surveillance of Palestinian communities and Israel’s long-established record of serious violations of international law, the risks of complicity were foreseeable and preventable. Therefore, claiming that it was not aware of the Israeli military’s use of its cloud system for mass surveillance purposes and to facilitate other abuses does not absolve Microsoft from its responsibility.
On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to prevent genocide in order “to protect the rights claimed by South Africa that the Court has found to be plausible,” including “the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide.” 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. On this basis, a September 2024 UN General Assembly resolution endorsed the ICJ ruling and set a one-year deadline for Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Furthermore, the International Criminal Court (ICC) —which Microsoft has actively supported— has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defense Minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
While we commend Microsoft’s announcement to open an investigation into Israel’s use of Azure cloud for mass surveillance purposes, such an investigation cannot replace a heightened human rights due diligence review. Microsoft has been one of the largest tech presences in Israel since 1991, where it maintains one of its most strategic presences outside the US, and is reported to have a “footprint in all major military infrastructures” in the country. The evidence of Israel’s atrocities is overwhelming. On September 16, 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel concluded that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit genocide in Gaza. It is also clear what Microsoft should do: suspend all of its business activities and terminate relationships with the Israeli military and other government bodies where there is evidence that such business activities are contributing to grave human rights abuses and international crimes. Microsoft’s own review has led the company to “cease and disable specified [Israeli military] subscriptions and their services, including their use of specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies.” We urge Microsoft to examine all of its related contracts in this light, and take measures such as ceasing the direct and indirect 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, policing, security or military activities by Israel.
In light of the above, we are seeking Microsoft’s response to the following questions:
- What steps, if any, will Microsoft take to suspend its business with the Israeli military and other government bodies where there is evidence indicating that business is contributing to grave human rights abuses and international crimes?
- Noting Microsoft’s promise to communicate publicly the findings of the formal review it is undertaking, will Microsoft commit to publishing the review findings in full including the scope of the investigation, the specific entities and services under review, and measures Microsoft will take to address adverse human rights impacts related to its business with the Israeli military and other government bodies?
- What steps has Microsoft taken to ensure its current formal review thoroughly investigates the use of its technologies by the Israeli authorities in light of the fact that the same law firm carried out the previous review?
- Will Microsoft conduct an additional human rights review, or incorporate a human rights lens to the current review? 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 with your policy outlined in your 2025 Responsible AI Transparency Report, has Microsoft applied any limited access restrictions to its AI technologies used by the IDF and Israeli government to commit genocide and other international crimes? 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 by Israel?
We request your response to these questions and any other information you would like to provide by October 10, 2025. 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.
Sincerely,
- Access Now
- Amnesty International
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Human Rights Watch
- 7amleh
- Fight for the Future