Israel stores vast call data on Microsoft cloud to target Palestinians, investigation reveals

Israel’s military intelligence agency has been using Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store and analyze intercepted Palestinian phone calls at a vast scale, according to an investigation by The Guardian, the Palestinian-Israeli publication +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call.

The system, operational since 2022, can process up to “a million calls an hour” and has been used to support military operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, according to the investigation.

It revealed the partnership took shape after a 2021 meeting between Israeli intelligence Unit 8200 commander Yossi Sariel and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

“Armed with Azure’s near-limitless storage capacity, Unit 8200 began building a powerful new mass surveillance tool: a sweeping and intrusive system that collects and stores recordings of millions of mobile phone calls made each day by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”

According to The Guardian, a cache of leaked Microsoft documents and interviews with 11 sources from the company and Israeli military intelligence revealed how Azure has been used by Unit 8200 “to store this expansive archive of everyday Palestinian communications.”

According to three Unit 8200 sources, the cloud-based storage platform “has facilitated the preparation of deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Leaked documents and sources familiar with the system showed that it stored around 11,500 terabytes of intercepted communications — the equivalent of roughly 200 million hours of phone calls.

The cloud-based system pioneered by Sariel “has been put to frequent use alongside a series of AI-driven target recommendation tools also developed on his watch and debuted by the military in a campaign that has devastated civilian life and created a profound humanitarian crisis,” added The Guardian.

Israel has been facing mounting outrage over its destructive war on Gaza, where more than 61,100 people have been killed since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave and brought it to the verge of famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.