Google employee protests against Israel’s war on Hamas: Google, Apple and Israeli tech workers are protesting against Israeli government censorship

Kowalczyk, the Google Cloud spokesperson, said the protests were “part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google. A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a couple of our locations. Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and we will investigate and take action.”

There are more companies in Silicon Valley that support worker activism related to Israel’s war on Hamas. More than 300 Apple employees signed an open letter in March asking company leadership to support Palestinians and to not retaliate against workers who have voiced their support.

The Israeli Military of Defense is one of the organizations that is receiving cloud computing services. A company document viewed by TIME shows that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has its own “landing zone” into Google Cloud. The defense ministry reportedly sought consulting assistance from Google to expand its Cloud access, according to a contract viewed by TIME. According to the contract, the defense ministry paid more than one million dollars for Google’s consulting services and they received a 15 percent discount on their consulting fees because of the Nimbus framework. A comment on the contract said it was part of an Israel/Nimbus deal.

Last month, Google cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield disrupted Google Israel’s managing director at Mind The Tech, a company-sponsored conference focused on the Israeli tech industry. When Hatfield was fired three days later, despite the fact that more than 600 other people had signed a petition opposing the company’s sponsorship of the conference, a trust and safety policy employee resigned.

Then, in late March, more than 300 Apple workers signed an open letter that alleged retaliation against workers who have expressed support for Palestinians, and urged company leadership to show public support for Palestinians.

Hasan Ibraheem, a Google software engineer, is participating in the sit-in at his local Google office in New York. This has been a culmination of our work, he tells WIRED.

After the protesters refuse to leave, the police tell them they’ll be arrested if they don’t comply. If you are willing to go, we can let you walk out the door at the moment. A New York City police officer tells the protesters they will be arrested if they do not leave.

Around the same time, the arrests occurred in the city of Sunnyvale. Workers at the office recorded their protest as they were about to be arrested. In the video, a man who appears to be a security guard asks the workers to leave voluntarily and threatens to call the police. Later, six police officers enter the office to arrest the five workers.

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“We did not come to Google to work on technology that kills. By engaging in this contract leadership has betrayed our trust, our AI Principles, and our humanity,” said Billy Van Der Laar, a Sunnyvale-based software engineer.

Israel’s military assault on Gaza, which began after Hamas killed about 1,100 Israelis on October 7, has added new fuel to the internal opposition to Project Nimbus. The Israeli Defence Force have killed over 34,000 Palestinians since moving into Gaza last fall.

The detained workers in New York include software engineers Hasan Ibraheem and Zelda Montes. Two workers identified themselves by their first names on a speaker-phone call with a group of protesters outside a New York office of search engine giant, Google.