A joint investigation reveals how Israel's elite cyber-intelligence unit used Microsoft's cloud services to store data from phone calls of millions of Palestinians, allowing it to expand its surveillance in Gaza and the West Bank
Israel is using Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to store vast amounts of intelligence collected on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, a joint investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian found this week. The Israel Defense Forces' elite cyber‑intelligence arm, Unit 8200, uses the platform to store intercepted communications, which would otherwise be too large for the IDF's server alone.
According to the report, Unit 8200, roughly equivalent to the National Security Agency in the U.S., uploaded millions of Palestinian phone call recordings to Azure, leveraging Microsoft's massive storage capacity. Three Israeli intelligence sources said the data has been used to plan strikes in Gaza and military operations in the West Bank.
This operation is considered one of the largest and most invasive surveillance programs ever targeting a single population. The revelations are based on anonymous Microsoft employees, Israeli intelligence sources, and internal Microsoft documents obtained by The Guardian.
