Latest news with #Sariel
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
‘They use it to find an excuse': Israel is using Microsoft's Cloud to spy on Palestinians — and bomb them
Anything a Palestinian says can be used against them, quite literally. A phone call to a relative, a text to a friend, a message in the family group chat — any of those could be intercepted, analysed, and marked as suspicious by an Israeli military surveillance programme, built in part with Microsoft's cloud technology, and used as justification to bomb an area. A recent investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call reveals how Israel's elite cyber intelligence unit, Unit 8200, uses Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to store and process intercepted phone calls and texts from Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Those calls are used not just for surveillance but for planning airstrikes. Unit 8200 has developed an AI tool, reportedly similar to ChatGPT, trained on these massive data troves. It can answer questions about individuals, offer insights from thousands of conversations, and flag potential targets. According to sources familiar with the system, this AI is being used to shape operations, justify detentions, and even assist in selecting bombing targets — sometimes based on who was near someone of interest. Israel has always intercepted Palestinian communications. But under this system, Unit 8200 stores all Palestinian phone calls for at least a month, allowing them to retroactively examine anyone's past conversations. The system began taking shape in 2021, when Unit 8200's commander, Yossi Sariel, met with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the company's campus in Redmond. Sariel, who later resigned after the October 7 intelligence failure, pitched a plan to move Israeli military intelligence into the Azure cloud. Nadella reportedly backed the idea, telling Sariel: 'Microsoft is committed to providing resources to support.' Internal records, seen by The Guardian, show Nadella encouraged Unit 8200 to move up to 70 per cent of its data, including sensitive intelligence, into Microsoft's cloud. Microsoft now claims Nadella only attended the meeting for ten minutes and was unaware of the data's nature. A spokesperson said: 'We are not aware of Azure being used for the storage of such data.' But The Guardian obtained leaked Microsoft documents and spoke to eleven sources in the company and Israeli intelligence. They confirm that Azure has hosted massive quantities of Palestinian surveillance data — up to 11,500 terabytes, equivalent to 200 million hours of audio, some of it stored in Microsoft data centres in the Netherlands and Ireland. Sariel's vision, following a wave of lone-wolf Palestinian attacks in 2015, was to stop selective surveillance and instead monitor everyone. One system, still in use today, scans Palestinian text messages and flags ones containing 'suspicious' words like 'weapon' or 'death.' Another, nicknamed 'noisy message,' assigns a threat rating to every message sent in the West Bank. 'When they need to arrest someone and there isn't a good enough reason to do so, that's where they find the excuse,' said one Unit 8200 source to the Guardian. In Gaza, sources say the Azure-based system has been directly used to prepare airstrikes. Before hitting a target in a crowded area, officers examine recent calls made in the vicinity. Microsoft has said that its technology must not be used to identify bombing targets. But sources in Unit 8200 say that's exactly what is happening. Microsoft's ties to the Israeli military have sparked employee protests. At a conference in May, one employee interrupted Nadella's keynote yelling, 'how about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?' After The Guardian exposed the company's role in January, Microsoft launched a review. The company has maintained it found 'no evidence to date' that its systems were used to harm civilians. But intelligence officers familiar with the system insist otherwise. They say it's helped kill thousands, including civilians and children. As of now, Microsoft continues to provide Unit 8200 with cloud infrastructure. Azure remains a 'mission-critical' part of Israel's surveillance machine, powering an AI-driven programme that listens to Palestinians, stores their voices, analyses their words, and sometimes helps choose who lives or dies.
Roya News
4 days ago
- Business
- Roya News
Microsoft helping 'Israel' with surveillance to attack Palestinians: report
A joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call has uncovered that 'Israel's' elite military intelligence Unit 8200 is utilizing Microsoft's Azure cloud platform for an extensive surveillance program, storing millions of Palestinian phone calls. This cloud-based system, operational since 2022, has significantly expanded 'Israel's' intelligence capabilities, raising serious human rights concerns . Unit 8200 reportedly sought Microsoft's assistance due to insufficient storage and computing power on its own servers, aiming to process "a million calls an hour". By July 2025, an estimated 11,500 terabytes of 'Israeli' military data, equivalent to approximately 200 million hours of audio, are projected to be housed on Microsoft's servers, primarily in the Netherlands. This marks a shift from monitoring "tens of thousands of suspects" to "millions of Palestinians" . Intelligence sources allege this data has been used to identify bombing targets in Gaza and for coercive purposes, including blackmail and justifying arrests in the West Bank. The collaboration, initiated after a late 2021 meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and then-Unit 8200 Commander Sariel, was viewed internally by Microsoft leadership as a "lucrative business opportunity". Despite Microsoft's public statements of finding "no evidence" its technology was used to harm Palestinians or aid civilian surveillance, leaked documents suggest Microsoft engineers were aware the data would include raw intelligence and audio files. The revelations have intensified protests from Microsoft employees, who have formed campaigns like "No Azure for Apartheid," demanding an end to the company's contracts with the 'Israeli' military.
