Microsoft Israel chief leaves after inquiry into use of tech to spy on Palestinians

The head of Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary is leaving his post following an investigation into the use of the tech company’s Azure platform by the Israeli defence ministry. 

Alon Haimovich will depart after four years as general manager of Microsoft Israel, with oversight of the subsidiary set to be transferred to Microsoft France, financial paper Globes reported on Tuesday. 

Several managers in Microsoft Israel’s governance department have also left their positions amid concerns that they have violated the company’s code of ethics.

Last year, Microsoft ordered an inquiry into the Israeli military’s use of the company’s technology to operate a surveillance system that could replay and analyse the contents of millions of Palestinian phone calls every day.

The inquiry came in response to revelations that Israel’s Unit 8200 intelligence agency had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store a vast trove of intercepted calls from Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The inquiry commissioned by Microsoft is understood to have recently concluded and to have led to Haimovich’s departure. The Guardian reported that while the inquiry’s findings are unclear, Microsoft concluded that Unit 8200 had violated its terms of service, which prohibit the use of its technology to facilitate mass surveillance.

Microsoft subsequently terminated the unit’s access to its cloud services and the products that had supported the mass surveillance project, which aimed to collect “a million calls per hour”.

According to Globes, Haimovich was summoned by the inquiry team after a visit to Microsoft Israel’s offices near Tel Aviv.

Documents seen by The Guardian suggest Haimovich played a role in developing the relationship between Microsoft Israel and Unit 8200 following a 2021 meeting between Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and the agency's then commander.

This included overseeing a partnership with the spy agency to build a segregated area within Azure to store sensitive intelligence material.

Once completed, Unit 8200 began transferring an expansive archive of everyday Palestinian communications into Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure.

In an email to staff announcing his departure last week, Haimovich said he had positioned Israel as “one of Microsoft’s fastest-growing markets worldwide”.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has described Microsoft as “perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel’s illegal apartheid regime and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza”.

Microsoft has previously said senior executives, including Nadella, were unaware that Unit 8200 was using Azure to store intercepted Palestinian communications.

The company’s vice chair and president, Brad Smith, said last year: “We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians.”