Microsoft fires employees who organized vigil for Palestinians

REDMOND

Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company's headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel's war with Hamas.

The two employees told The Associated Press they were fired by phone call late on Oct. 24, several hours after a lunchtime event they organized at Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington.

Both workers were members of a coalition of employees called “No Azure for Apartheid" that has opposed Microsoft's sale of its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli government.

“We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends or loved ones,” said Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist.

"But Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves."

Mohamed, who is from Egypt, said he now needs a new job in the next two months to transfer a work visa and avoid deportation.

Another fired worker, Hossam Nasr, said the purpose of the vigil was both “to honor the victims of the Palestinian genocide in Gaza and to call attention to Microsoft’s complicity in the genocide” because of the use of its technology by the Israeli military.

Google earlier this year fired more than 50 workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war .

The firings stemmed from internal turmoil and sit-in protests at Google offices centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.