Israel-Hamas war: Microsoft fires employees who organized an event in support of Palestinians killed in Gaza

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Microsoft reportedly fired two employees for staging unauthorized surveillance at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, supporting Palestinians killed in Gaza for Israelwar with Hamas.
According to a report by the Associated Press, the two employees said they were fired in a phone call late Thursday (October 24). The staff organized a lunchtime event. Both employees are said to be members of a group called No Azure for Apartheid, which opposes Microsoft’s sale of its cloud computing technology to the Israeli government.

What the dismissed employees say

Employees claimed the event was similar to other Microsoft-approved employee gift drives for the needy.
“There are so many members of the Microsoft community who have lost family, friends or loved ones. But Microsoft really didn’t find a place for us to come together, share our grief, and honor the memory of people who can no longer speak for themselves,” said Abdelrahman Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist.
Another fired employee, Hossam Nasr, said the purpose of the viche was to “honor the victims of the Palestinian genocide in Gaza and draw attention to Microsoft’s complicity in genocide” through the use of its technology by the Israeli military.

What Microsoft said about employee layoffs

Without providing specific details, Microsoft said it had “terminated certain individuals in accordance with internal policy.”
The tech giant added that it remains “committed to maintaining a professional and respectful work environment. For privacy and confidentiality reasons, we cannot provide specific details.”
The news comes in a few months Google also fired more than 50 workers who protested the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government. Called Project Nimbusa $1.2 billion contract was awarded jointly with Google and Amazon.com to supply the Israeli government with cloud services.
Google said the Nimbus contract “is not aimed at highly sensitive, classified or military workloads involving weapons or intelligence.”