Microsoft fires employees who organized a vigil for the Palestinians murdered in Gaza

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 that they were fired by phone late Thursday, hours after a lunch event they hosted at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington.

Both employees were members of a coalition of workers called “No Azure for Apartheid” that opposed Microsoft’s sale of its cloud computing technology to the Israeli government. But they claimed Thursday’s event was similar to other Microsoft-approved employee gift campaigns for those in need.

“We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, friends or loved ones,” said Abdelrahman Mohamed, researcher and data scientist. “But Microsoft really failed to provide 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.”

Microsoft said Friday that it has “terminated the employment of certain individuals in accordance with internal policies,” but declined to provide details.

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 employee, Hossam Nasr, said the purpose of the vigil was both “to honor the victims of the Palestinian genocide in Gaza and to draw attention to Microsoft’s complicity in the genocide” due to the use of its technology by the Israeli army.

Nasr said his resignation was announced on social media by the watchdog group Stop Antisemitism more than an hour before he received the call from Microsoft. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday about how it learned about the firing.

The same group had months earlier publicly called on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to take action against Nasr over his public positions on Israel.

Nasr, an Egyptian-raised 2021 graduate of Harvard University, is also co-organizer of Harvard Alumni for Palestine.

Google fired more than 50 employees earlier this year in the wake of protests over the technology the company provides to the Israeli government. the Gaza war. The layoffs were the result of internal unrest and sit-in protests at Google offices surrounding “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.

Microsoft said in a statement Friday about the layoffs that it “remains committed to maintaining a professional and respectful work environment. Due to privacy and confidentiality concerns, we cannot provide specific details.”