Israel has allegedly been recording and storing millions of phone calls made by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as part of a large-scale surveillance initiative dating back to 2022. According to an investigative report by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call, the recordings were reportedly routed to Microsoft‘s Azure cloud servers in Europe.
The project was said to have been greenlit at the highest level, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella allegedly approving a custom and isolated space within Azure after a meeting with a commander from Unit 8200, Israel’s military surveillance agency. This segregated infrastructure reportedly facilitates the storage of millions of intercepted calls made daily, without the knowledge or consent of the individuals being recorded.
Sources within Unit 8200 told the publications that intelligence derived from these conversations has been used to inform military campaigns, including airstrikes, as part of Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza. While Israel has historically maintained control over Palestinian telecom infrastructure, the new system appears to cast a significantly wider net, with the project reportedly built around the goal of intercepting “a million calls an hour.”
Leaked Microsoft documents indicate that the majority of the recorded data is being housed in Azure cloud facilities located in the Netherlands and Ireland. This development has drawn further scrutiny toward Microsoft’s involvement in Israel’s nearly two-year military campaign in Gaza. During a Microsoft Build keynote in May, Nadella was publicly challenged by an employee who accused the company of enabling Israeli war crimes through its cloud services.
Earlier this year, Microsoft commissioned an external review which concluded there was “no evidence to date” that its Azure or AI services were used to target or harm civilians. The company insisted that it has “no information” about the nature of data stored by Israel and maintains that it has not knowingly supported surveillance of civilians through its services.
(Source: The Guardian)
