Israel’s elite cyber-intelligence unit saved huge volumes of intercepted Palestinian telephone calls on Microsoft’s cloud servers, based on a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Journal and Native Name.
The surveillance system, operational since 2022, was constructed by Unit 8200, the Israeli army’s secretive intelligence department. It permits the unit to gather and retain recordings of tens of millions of day by day telephone calls from Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Financial institution.
The revelations initially reported on Wednesday stem from leaked Microsoft paperwork and testimonies from 11 sources, together with from Israeli army intelligence and the corporate.
In response to the leaks, a considerable amount of the info seemed to be saved on Microsoft’s Azure servers positioned within the Netherlands and Eire, the Guardian reported.
Three sources from Unit 8200 mentioned that the cloud-based system helped information lethal air strikes and formed operations throughout the occupied Palestinian territories.
Microsoft mentioned that CEO Satya Nadella, who met with Unit 8200’s commander Yossi Sariel in 2021, was unaware of the character of the info to be saved. The corporate has mentioned an inside evaluate discovered “no proof to this point” that Azure or its synthetic intelligence (AI) instruments had been “used to focus on or hurt folks”.
The revelations come after the United Nations particular rapporteur on the state of affairs of human rights within the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, issued a report mapping the companies aiding Israel in its occupation and battle on Gaza.
The report famous that Microsoft, which has operated in Israel since 1991, has constructed its largest hub outdoors the US in Israel and started integrating its applied sciences throughout the nation’s army, police, prisons, colleges, and settlements.
Since 2003, the corporate has deepened ties with Israeli defence, buying surveillance and cybersecurity start-ups and embedding its methods in army operations. In 2024, an Israeli colonel referred to as cloud applied sciences resembling these provided by Microsoft “a weapon in each sense”.
The Guardian reported that inside information at Microsoft confirmed that Nadella provided help for Sariel’s intention to maneuver giant volumes of army intelligence into the cloud.
A Microsoft assertion cited by the Guardian mentioned it “will not be correct” to say he supplied his private help for the undertaking.
Microsoft engineers later labored intently with Israeli intelligence to embed security measures inside Azure, enabling the switch of as much as 70 p.c of Unit 8200’s delicate information to the platform.
Whereas Israeli officers declare the know-how helps thwart assaults, Unit 8200 sources mentioned the system collects communications indiscriminately, which are sometimes used to detain or blackmail Palestinians. “When they should arrest somebody and there isn’t a adequate motive … that’s the place they discover the excuse,” one supply was cited as saying.
Some sources alleged the saved information had been used to justify detentions and even killings.
The system’s growth coincided with a broader shift in Israeli surveillance, shifting from focused monitoring to bulk monitoring of the Palestinian inhabitants. One AI-driven software reportedly assigns threat scores to textual content messages based mostly on sure set off phrases, together with discussions of weapons or martyrdom.
Sariel, who resigned in 2024 after Israel’s intelligence failure on October 7, 2023, had lengthy championed cloud-based surveillance.
As Israel’s battle on Gaza continues, with greater than 61,250 Palestinians killed, together with 18,000 youngsters, the surveillance programme stays lively. Sources mentioned the prevailing information, mixed with AI instruments, continues for use in army operations.
Microsoft claimed it had “no data” concerning the particular information saved by Unit 8200.
