Microsoft Fired Our Members for Organizing a Vigil for Palestinian Victims of Microsoft-Powered Genocide
“To Microsoft, the image of Microsoft workers honoring the victims of genocide is more offensive than the images of Palestinians being burned alive, in a genocide Microsoft is powering and funding.”
– Hossam Nasr, No Azure for Apartheid organizer and fired Microsoft worker.
On Thursday, October 24th, Microsoft unjustly terminated two Microsoft workers and members of the No Azure for Apartheid campaign — Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr — for holding a lunchtime vigil and fundraiser at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA. At the vigil, we honored the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, enabled by Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology.
We honored our martyrs
Over 200 employees joined the vigil both in person and virtually, where we honored the lives of Shaban al-Dalou, a software engineering student in Gaza who was burned alive by Israeli bombs two weeks ago; Mai Ubeid, a former Google intern who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza; and Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a Seattle community member and University of Washington graduate, who was killed by an Israeli sniper bullet to the head in September 2024. As part of Microsoft’s October Give Campaign, we fundraised donations to Palestinian humanitarian relief efforts to be matched by the company.
“Our event modeled how our community leads with care and compassion — we came together to show our unwavering commitment to the Palestinian people, and to uplift Palestinian voices and support them in their fight towards liberation,” said Abdo Mohamed, one of the fired workers and an organizer with No Azure for Apartheid.
We held space for our community to mourn; for the first time on Microsoft’s campus, our community was able to grieve our families, friends, and loved ones that have been taken from us due to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. We encouraged Microsoft workers to donate to Palestinian humanitarian relief efforts, and they did. We encouraged workers to wear their keffiyehs and other symbols that proudly show their solidarity with Palestinian people, and they did. More importantly, we connected the ongoing genocide to our labor at Microsoft, as Microsoft continues to enable and empower Israel’s murderous war machine with our labor.
Microsoft retaliated against our members and failed to protect its workers
Our efforts to bring our community together did not sit well with executives who profit from Israel’s genocide. Despite the vigil being organized in accordance with the Employee Give Campaign guidelines, Microsoft executives decided to single out and terminate our two Arab, Muslim, Egyptian-national members, Abdo and Hossam, who helped organize the vigil, mere hours after the vigil concluded.
Make no mistake: Microsoft did not fire Abdo and Hossam because they broke Microsoft policy. Microsoft fired them because they dared to humanize Palestinians, and they dared to draw attention to Microsoft’s complicity in the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
In addition to rejecting this unjust retaliation, we are deeply concerned that an online anti-Palestinian group, notorious for doxing and harassment, posted information regarding the termination of Hossam almost two hours before he himself was even notified. Microsoft claimed that they cannot comment on the firing to protect its employees’ private and confidential information, but the leak raises serious concerns regarding its HR practices.
This moment is an escalation of Microsoft’s repeated attempts to silence its employees in a year-long campaign of worker intimidation and retaliation. Microsoft’s recent extreme targeting of employees speaks to an alarming growing pattern of suppression of speech related to Palestinian rights and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab sentiment in big tech companies, including at Meta and Google. We are appalled by Microsoft’s actions retaliating against Microsoft workers who are grieving horrific loss of life, instead of creating and fostering an environment where all employees feel safe no matter their background.
Microsoft is complicit in genocide
This behavior is consistent with Microsoft’s business practices, which are deeply entrenched in the Israeli war machine. Microsoft provides the Israeli military with Azure cloud, AI, and storage services, which are crucial in automating its genocide in Gaza. Conducting the world’s first AI-assisted genocide, the Israeli military uses AI and cloud technologies, including from “civilian cloud” such as Azure, to construct a “weapons platform” and a “mass assassination factory” that automate and accelerate Israel’s genocidal aims through systems like the Gospel, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy.
Along with providing Israel with crucial technological infrastructure to commit genocide in Gaza and silencing employees who speak out, Microsoft is also encouraging and matching employee donations to organizations that fundraise for the Israeli military and illegal West Bank settlements. At the same time, Microsoft had delisted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, from its employee donations program. Described by the UN Secretary-General as “the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza,” UNRWA is the most crucial UN organization providing life-saving humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees.
“Microsoft is empowering, funding, and enabling Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, while withholding funds from the victims of said genocide,” said Hossam Nasr, one of the fired employees and an organizer with No Azure for Apartheid.
Microsoft executives grasped at straws to claim that Hossam and Abdo violated company policy. Yet, Microsoft’s deeply entrenched relationship with Israel is the real company policy violation: Microsoft is failing to comply with its own Human Rights statement and commitments, which compels the company to operate in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions, and the Rome Statute, among other international legal frameworks.
Microsoft is continuing its unethical business practices, which empower the ongoing Israeli human rights violations, despite the UN and nearly every major human rights organization urgently calling for an immediate ceasefire, calling the situation in Gaza beyond catastrophic. This includes the International Court of Justice ruling from January of this year, which states that Israel is plausibly committing the crime of genocide.
Despite Microsoft’s repression, intimidation, and collusion, history will write that our campaign, and our members who were unjustly fired, were the moral conscience of this corporation, standing up in the name of a world where all people are treated with dignity and equality.
Microsoft prides itself on its human rights commitments, and even has a history of divesting from apartheid South Africa in April 1986. It now has an opportunity to protect human rights and end its relationship with Israel following in the footsteps of its own precedent.
We reiterate our core demands
- IOF off Azure: End Microsoft’s complicity in Israeli genocide and apartheid by terminating all Azure contracts and partnerships with the Israeli military and government.
- Disclose all ties: Make all ties to the Israeli state, military, and tech industry publicly known, including weapons manufacturers and contractors, and conduct a transparent and independent audit of these ties to ensure compliance with Microsoft’s own Global Human Rights Statement and our commitments to international human rights instruments in Palestine and all over the world.
- Call for a ceasefire: Honor the demands of the over 1,000 employees who signed the petition calling on Microsoft’s leadership to publicly endorse an immediate, permanent ceasefire.
- Protect employees and uphold free speech: Ensure the safety of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and allied employees by protecting pro-Palestinian speech, actions, and fundraising initiatives on company platforms.
In addition, No Azure for Apartheid demands that Microsoft:
- Rehires and formally apologizes to the two fired employees.
- Conducts an investigation into Microsoft’s Human Resources department for failing to protect employee information and privacy, and shares the results of the investigation with all employees.
- Provides an immediate explanation for the leak and apparent collusion with a group known for doxing and harassment.
We call on all people of conscience to add your voice to ours, and sign our petition to demand an end to Microsoft’s complicity in the genocide and justice for the fired workers.
We will not stop; we will not rest!
Ultimately, Microsoft singled out and fired who they perceived as our most vulnerable members because they thought they would intimidate us, silence our movement, and derail our campaign. They could not be more mistaken. Our resolve is unshaken, our mission is undeterred, our resilience and steadfastness have not faltered, and our commitment to Palestinian liberation is unwavering. Our spirits have been invigorated, and our community is united more than ever to continue its fight and hold Microsoft accountable for its complicity in the genocide of our people in Palestine.
To our fellow Microsoft workers, we invite you all to sign our petition at t.ly/NoAzureForApartheid, and to join our mailing list and stay up to date with future events.
This repression will not silence us; it only strengthens our movement.
We say it louder than ever: No Azure for Apartheid! IOF Off Azure!
