Google terminates 28 employees for participating in sit-in protest against Israel contract.

The Tuesday demonstration was organized by the group “No Tech for Apartheid,” which has long opposed “Project Nimbus,” Google’s joint $1.2 billion contract with Amazon to provide cloud services to the government of Israel. Video of the demonstration showed police arresting Google workers in Sunnyvale, California, in the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s, according to a post by the advocacy group on X, formerly Twitter. Kurian’s office was occupied for 10 hours, the advocacy group said. “No Tech for Apartheid,” which also held protests in New York and Seattle, pointed to an April 12 Time magazine article reporting a draft contract of Google billing the Israeli Ministry of Defense more than $1 million for consulting services.

The Google spokesperson stated, “After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety.” The spokesperson also mentioned, “We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.” Israel is one of “numerous” governments for which Google provides cloud computing services, the Google spokesperson said. “This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” the Google spokesperson said.

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