The Israeli Army’s Digital Supporters: Big Tech Companies
In a special report prepared by Yuval Abraham from the Israeli +972 Magazine, it was revealed that world-famous digital giants Amazon, Google and Microsoft have been providing support to the military attacks carried out by the Israeli army since October 7. According to the report, on July 10, Colonel Racheli Dembinsky, commander of the Information Processing and Information Systems Center, which has critical importance in the field of data processing of the Israeli army (IDF), made important statements at a conference titled “Informatics for the IDF ” held in Rishon Lezion near Tel Aviv.
In his speech, recorded by +972 Magazine, Dembinsky publicly acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli military uses cloud storage and artificial intelligence services provided by civilian technology companies in its ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip. Logos of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure stood out on Dembinsky’s presentation slides.
Use of Cloud Storage and Artificial Intelligence
Cloud storage is a modern way to store large amounts of digital data, usually on servers managed by a third-party provider. Dembinsky initially described the army unit Mamram as using an “operational cloud” hosted on military servers, rather than public clouds operated by civilian companies. This internal cloud was described as a “weapons platform” that would include targeting applications for bombings, live-streaming portals from drones over the skies of Gaza, and attack and command-and-control systems.
During the ground offensive launched by the Netanyahu administration on Gaza after October 7, the army’s operations slowed down due to the overload of military personnel on internal systems. In order to overcome these problems, more support was requested from Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Dembinsky stated that the first solution attempt was to activate the existing backup servers and establish a new data center, but that was not enough. The army decided to open up “to the outside, to the civilian world.” In this way, cloud services offered by large technology companies eliminated the need for the army to physically store servers in their own centers and provided access to unlimited storage and processing capacity.
Dembinsky stressed that the “most important” advantage offered by cloud companies is their advanced capabilities in the field of artificial intelligence. “We have reached a point where our systems really need this insane wealth of services, big data and artificial intelligence,” Dembinsky said, adding that this cooperation provides the military with “very significant operational effectiveness” in the Gaza Strip.
Intelligence and Surveillance
Research has shown that the Israeli military stores some intelligence gathered through mass surveillance of the Gaza population on servers managed by Amazon’s AWS. The cloud providers have also reportedly provided a wealth of AI capabilities and services to Israeli military units since the start of the Gaza war. According to multiple sources, AWS’s public cloud system provides the military with “infinite storage” to keep intelligence on almost “everyone” in Gaza.
A source who stated that they “receive orders from Amazon” to receive information while carrying out their operational duties stated that they work with two screens, one of which is connected to the army’s special systems and the other to AWS. Military sources emphasized that the intelligence obtained from the surveillance of all Palestinian residents in Gaza is too extensive to be stored only on military servers. In particular, it is stated that more extensive storage and processing power is needed to store billions of audio files, and for these reasons, it has become necessary for technology companies to turn to cloud services.
The vast amount of information stored in Amazon’s cloud has reportedly helped confirm rare aerial assassinations in Gaza, thus contributing to attacks targeting Palestinian civilians.
Protests and Workers’ Responses
This led to a series of protests questioning the contribution of big tech companies to Israel’s ongoing war. The deal was highly controversial, and within months hundreds of workers at both companies signed open letters calling for cutting ties with the Israeli military. The protests by Amazon and Google employees have been growing since October 7 under the banner of “No Tech For Apartheid.” In April, Google, which was briefly listed as a sponsor of the IT For IDF conference where Dembinsky spoke, fired 50 staff members after employees participated in a protest at its New York offices.
Cloud-Based Storage of Intelligence
Sources speaking to +972 Magazine indicated that most of the Israeli military’s intelligence on Palestinian military agents is stored on military computers rather than on a public cloud connected to the internet. However, according to three security sources, one of the data systems used by the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate is stored on Amazon’s public cloud, AWS. This system has been actively used for mass surveillance in Gaza since at least the end of 2022, but was not considered particularly operational prior to the current war. Now, according to these sources, Amazon’s system provides “an endless repository” of information for the military to use.
The Israeli army has killed hundreds of civilians in attacks on senior Hamas commanders. Security sources have reported that Amazon’s cloud system was used effectively in some of these cases. In 2022, Itai Binyamin, an AI expert who was working with Microsoft Azure at the time and is now at AWS, explained to a group of graduates from Dembinsky’s Mamram unit that this system makes it possible to “deploy [Microsoft’s] AI capabilities within your company, on your servers, even in an environment disconnected [from the internet].”
Strengthening Operational Technology
Microsoft Azure’s website highlights what it calls “disconnected containers” designed for “strategic partners.” These tools offer capabilities such as transcription, translation, emotion recognition, language, summary, document and image analysis. Brigadier General Yael Grossman, commander of the Army’s Operational Technology Enhancement Division, said relying on civilian technology in the current war has “a crazy leap in a short period of time.” But Dembinsky emphasized that uploading these materials to the cloud is a process that should be taken with caution, likening it to “handing the keys to a Mercedes to someone else.”
