European Legal Support Center

Microsoft faces legal action over role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza

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A sign is seen at the Microsoft headquarters on July 3, 2024 in Redmond, Washington [David Ryder/Getty Images]

Microsoft is facing mounting legal and ethical scrutiny for its alleged complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. A coalition of legal and human rights organisations has issued a formal notice to the tech giant, accusing it of aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, by knowingly providing technology used by the Israeli military in its ongoing assault on Gaza.

The letter, delivered on 2 December by groups including the Center for Constitutional Rights, Avaaz, GLAN (Global Legal Action Network), and the European Legal Support Center, places Microsoft and its senior executives on notice of their potential exposure to civil and criminal liability under international and domestic law.

“There exists a reasonable and credible basis to believe that Microsoft has, through its provision of technology and services to the Israeli military, played a direct role in Israel’s commission of grave crimes,” states the letter, which outlines how Microsoft’s cloud computing and AI services have been integrated into Israel’s mass surveillance and targeting apparatus.

READ: Microsoft must be held accountable for its complicity in Gaza genocide, rights group says

The coalition highlights that Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed over 70,000 Palestinians since October 2023, with over 170,000 more injured. Infrastructure has been decimated, famine is spreading, and nearly the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Despite this, Microsoft deepened its ties with Israel’s military, with internal documents showing a surge in cloud and AI service sales to Israeli units actively engaged in the genocidal campaign.

Among the most damning revelations is Microsoft’s work with Israel’s Unit 8200, a military intelligence unit responsible for mass surveillance of Palestinians. Microsoft engineers built a customised Azure cloud platform used to store over 11,500 terabytes of intercepted Palestinian phone calls and data, enabling the development of “kill lists” for airstrikes. 

The tech giant also sold thousands of hours of engineering support to the Israeli Ministry of Defence, and its services powered key military units and applications such as the Ofek Unit, Mamram, Unit 81, and Al-Munaseq, all of which have supported Israel’s assault on Gaza.

READ: Microsoft blocks emails containing terms related to ‘Gaza,’ ‘Palestine,’ ‘genocide’

“Israel’s genocide would be impossible without private Big Tech firms equipping the Israeli military with everything from cloud storage to surveillance technology,” said Bassel El-Rewini, Human Rights Fellow at Abolitionist Law Center. “Faced with an ever-growing body of evidence, implicated companies, including Microsoft, have no excuse for continuing their support to Israel and must be held accountable.”

The letter was issued days before Microsoft’s Annual General Meeting on 5 December, stressing the reputational and financial risks the company now faces. Shareholders are being urged to demand an end to the company’s entanglement with Israeli military operations.

“Microsoft’s services and technologies have been used to violate Palestinian human rights, and shareholders should be aware of just how much this opens up the company to legal liability,” said Eric Sype of 7amleh.

Critics argue that Microsoft has not only enabled Israeli war crimes, but profited from them. As journalist investigations and internal documents show, Microsoft’s sales to Israel’s military skyrocketed after October 2023. The company raced to offer discounts and expanded services while Israel escalated its campaign.

“The scale and speed of Israel’s genocide would have been impossible to execute without Microsoft’s intervention,” the letter concludes.

OPINION: Justice alone can be the basis for a ceasefire – Understanding Hamas’s rejection of Israel’s terms

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. See more news at Middle East Monitor.

Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Continue ReadingMicrosoft faces legal action over role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Lawyers Sue Germany in Bid to Block Arms Exports to Israel

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A woman protests the German government’s arms exports to Israel during a December 28, 2023 protest in Berlin. 
(Photo: Maryam Majd/Getty Images)

“There is reason to believe that these weapons are being used to commit grave violations of international law, such as the crime of genocide and war crimes.”

The Berlin-based Lawyers’ Collective on Friday sued the German government in an effort to stop weapons transfers to Israel, whose government and military are waging a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Germany is the second-largest arms exporter to Israel, providing 30% of its imported weaponry from 2019-23. The top exporter, the United States, provided 69% of Israel’s imported armaments during that same period.

“As there is reason to believe that these weapons are being used to commit grave violations of international law, such as the crime of genocide and war crimes, the applicants are hereby demanding that the German government protect their right to life,” groups supporting the lawsuit—including the European Legal Support Center, Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, Law for Palestine, and Forensis—said in a statement.

Ahmed Abed, an attorney in the case who is representing Palestinian families, said during a Friday press conference in Berlin that “Germany has a constitutional responsibility to protect human life.”

“The German government must stop its arms exports to Israel, as they are in violation of international law,” he added. “The government cannot claim that it is not aware of this.”

According to the Lawyers’ Collective:

In 2023, the German government issued arms exports licenses to Israel worth €326.5 million, the majority of which were approved after October 7, 2023, a tenfold increase compared to 2022. The German government is currently supporting the Israeli army by approving the supply of 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons, 500,000 rounds of ammunition for machine guns, submachine guns, or other fully or semi-automatic firearms, as well as other military equipment, while in early 2024 Germany was preparing the authorization of 10,000 rounds of 120mm tank ammunition…

The arms deliveries and support provided by the Federal Government to Israel violate the Federal Republic’s obligations under the War Weapons Control Act. The criteria for the approval of arms exports include, among other things, that the weapons are not used against Germany’s obligations to international law.

The groups said that since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found in January that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, they believe that “the delivery of weapons is contrary to these obligations.”

In February, lawyers from some of the same groups involved in the new lawsuit sued senior German officials, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for “aiding and abetting” Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Last month, Nicaragua filed an ICJ lawsuit against Germany accusing its government of helping Israel commit genocide against Palestinians.

In addition to exporting hundreds of millions of euros worth of arms to Israel, Germany also suspended contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in response to unsubstantiated Israeli accusations that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 workers in Gaza were involved in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel. This, as Palestinians starve to death.

The German government has been intensely criticized for its nearly unconditional support for Israel and for violently cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests. Numerous observers contend that Germany’s actions are driven by historical guilt over the Holocaust, with some critics claiming the German government is weaponizing that guilt in order to demonize Palestinians and their defenders.

The new lawsuit came as the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday voted 28-6 with 13 abstentions in favor of a resolution demanding that Israel be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The United States and Germany were the two biggest countries to vote against the measure.

Palestinian and international human rights officials say at least 33,173 Palestinians—most of them women and children—have been killed by Israel’s bombing, invasion, and siege of Gaza since October 7. More than 75,800 others have been wounded, while over 7,000 Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the hundreds of thousands of homes and other structures damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingLawyers Sue Germany in Bid to Block Arms Exports to Israel