Microsoft on Thursday fired two additional employees after firing two others a day prior, following a break-in at the office of its vice chair and company president, Brad Smith, earlier this week, as part of a protest of the technology company’s purported links to Israel.
“Two additional employees were terminated due to serious violations of established company policies and our code of conduct, including participating in recent on-site demonstrations that created significant safety concerns for our employees,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.
The terminations came after a group of seven people broke into executive offices at Microsoft’s global headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on Tuesday to hold a sit-in. No Azure for Apartheid, an advocacy group organized by Microsoft employees, said in an Instagram post that current and former workers from Microsoft, Google and Oracle were part of the group that occupied Smith’s office.
The protesters, who were arrested by police on Tuesday, were demanding that Microsoft cut ties with Israel after The Guardian reported earlier this month that a unit of the Israeli military is using Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to surveil Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
A Microsoft spokesperson said in the statement Thursday that the company is “continuing to investigate the conduct on our campus and work with law enforcement to help ensure the safety of all our employees. We wish to emphasize, again, as we did in a statement yesterday, that such conduct is entirely unacceptable and stands in direct opposition to our company values and policies.”
In an Instagram post, No Azure for Apartheid identified two of the employees as Anna Hattle and Riki Fameli.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Smith said Microsoft has launched a formal investigation into Israel’s reported use of Azure. “We are committed to ensuring that our human rights principles and our contractual terms of service are upheld in the Middle East,” he said.
Protests against Microsoft over the Israeli military’s use of the company’s technology have been going on for months. Police last week arrested 18 people after a similar protest at the company’s Redmond headquarters.
Israel launched its war against Hamas in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-orchestrated terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023. The war has killed more than 60,000 people in Gaza, according to the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.
The Hamas-led attack almost two years ago killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw 251 others taken as hostages into Gaza.
contributed to this report.
