[News] AI for War: Big Tech Empowering Israel’s Crimes and Occupation
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AI for War: Big Tech Empowering Israel’s Crimes and Occupation |
Al-Shabaka
Marwa Fatafta· Oct 26, 2025
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*Introduction*
US technology giants portray themselves as architects of a better world
powered by artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and
data-driven solutions. Under slogans such as “AI for Good
<https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/ai-for-good-research-lab/>,”
they pledge to serve as ethical stewards of the technologies reshaping
our societies. Yet in Gaza, these narratives
<https://aiforgood.itu.int/ai-and-the-social-contract-how-sam-altman-envisions-tomorrows-world/>have
collapsed, alongside international norms and what remains of the
so-called rules-based order.
The Israeli regime’s genocidal war in Gaza has drawn attention
<https://uncomplicit.tech/>to the role of major technology companies in
enabling military operations and sustaining the occupation. Beneath the
Israeli destruction lie servers, neural networks, and software systems
built and deployed by some of the world’s most powerful corporations.
The increasing militarization of digital technologies and
infrastructures—most visibly in Israel’s deployment of AI-driven systems
and data analytics in Gaza—has reshaped debates on accountability and
exposed critical gaps in existing governance frameworks. This policy
brief examines how the frontier of accountability for technology
companies now extends to potential complicity in war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and genocide, underscoring the urgent need for new
approaches to regulating AI militarization.
*An AI-Powered Genocide*
The Israeli regime first deployed AI systems to generate and prioritize
lethal targets during the 11-day bombardment of Gaza in May 2021
<https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/gaza-news/guardian-of-the-walls-the-first-ai-war-669371>—a
vicious, unlawful assault the Israeli military later described as its
first “AI war.” Since then, the occupation forces have significantly
expanded their reliance on AI tools, using cloud computing and machine
learning to store and process vast volumes of surveillance data—from
satellite imagery to intercepted communications
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud>—to
automate the identification and ranking of targets for attack.
Central to Israel’s AI warfare is Project Nimbus
<https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-google-project-nimbus-israel-idf/>—a
$1.2 billion contract through which Google and Amazon have provided the
Israeli government and military with advanced cloud infrastructure and
machine learning capabilities. In the early days of the genocide,
Israeli forces reportedly
<https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/>relied almost
entirely on AI-powered target-generating systems—such as Lavender, The
Gospel, and Where’s Daddy—to accelerate mass killing and destruction
across Gaza. These platforms ingest mass surveillance data about the
entire population of Gaza to algorithmically determine—at scale—who is
to be killed, which buildings are to be bombed, and how much “collateral
damage” is deemed acceptable.
AI has enabled the Israeli regime’s genocidal logic to be carried out
with machine-driven efficiency—reducing Palestinians, their families,
and their homes to what the military chillingly calls 'garbage targets'
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Alarmingly, these AI-driven systems internalize the genocidal logic of
their operators
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-18/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-expose-arbitrary-killings-and-rampant-lawlessness-in-gazas-netzarim-corridor/00000193-da7f-de86-a9f3-fefff2e50000>.
They are trained to treat civilians as “terrorists,” building on the
genocidal logic of Israeli officials who declared that “there are no
innocent civilians in Gaza
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-extremist-incendiary-language-rhetoric>.”
As part of efforts to automate lethal targeting, military commanders
reportedly instructed soldiers
<https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/>to identify and
feed as many targets as possible into the system. This effectively
lowers the threshold for designating individuals as “Hamas militants,”
casting a wide net of algorithmically flagged subjects. Despite its high
error rate <https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/>, the
only criterion Israeli soldiers applied to Lavender’s kill list was the
target’s gender, effectively rendering all Palestinian males—children
and adults alike—legitimate targets. In practice, AI technology has
enabled the Israeli regime’s genocidal logic to be executed with
ruthless, machine-driven efficiency, reducing Palestinians, their
families, and their homes to what the military chillingly refers to as
“garbage targets.”
While many of the technical details of Israel’s AI targeting systems
remain classified, there is ample credible evidence
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud>that
their functionality depends
<https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/ap-exposes-big-tech-ai-systems-direct-role-in-warfare-amid-israels-war-in-gaza/>on
cloud infrastructure and machine-learning capabilities developed and
maintained by major technology companies, including Google, Amazon,
Microsoft, and Palantir. Consequently, tech companies’ direct provision
of digital systems used in Israeli warfare raises urgent questions about
corporate complicity in grave violations of international law, including
acts for which the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest
warrants
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges>for
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister
Yoav Gallant.
*/From Code to Kill Lists/*
As Israel intensified its assault on Gaza, its demand for AI and
cloud-based technologies, supplied by US tech giants, grew rapidly
<https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google-microsoft/>,
embedding corporate infrastructure into the machinery of war. In March
2024, Google deepened its ties with the Israeli Ministry of Defense
(IMOD) by signing a new contract
<https://time.com/6966102/google-contract-israel-defense-ministry-gaza-war/>to
build a specialized “landing zone” into its cloud infrastructure,
enabling multiple military units access to its automation technologies.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google’s partner in Project Nimbus, was
reported to have supplied
<https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google-microsoft/>Israel’s
Military Intelligence Directorate with a dedicated server farm capable
of endless storage for surveillance data collected on almost everyone in
Gaza.
Recent reporting
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud>has
further documented the rapid expansion of Israel’s AI-driven military
capabilities, underscoring how growing partnerships with technology
companies have accelerated the deployment of advanced systems in its war
on Gaza. According to leaked documents, Microsoft hosted
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud>elements
of the Israeli military’s mass surveillance program on its cloud
servers, storing recordings of millions of intercepted phone calls from
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli occupation forces
reportedly used these files to identify bombing targets, blackmail
individuals, place people in detention, and also to justify killings
after the fact. The Israeli military’s reliance on Microsoft Azure
surged
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/23/israeli-military-gaza-war-microsoft>accordingly:
in the first six months of the war, its average monthly use rose by 60%,
while use of Azure’s machine-learning tools increased 64-fold compared
to prewar levels. By March 2024, the use of Microsoft and OpenAI
technological tools by Israeli forces was nearly 200 times higher
<https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/ap-exposes-big-tech-ai-systems-direct-role-in-warfare-amid-israels-war-in-gaza/>than
it had been in the week preceding October 7, 2023. In addition, the
amount of data stored on Microsoft’s servers had doubled to more than 13
petabytes.
The results of Microsoft’s own internal review
<https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/09/25/update-on-ongoing-microsoft-review/>,
announced in September 2025, ultimately confirmed that a unit of the
Israeli defense ministry had indeed used some of its services for
prohibited surveillance purposes. Consequently, the company suspended
certain cloud and AI services, admitting that its technology was
complicit in practices that contravened its terms of service. Yet
Microsoft’s suspension of services to the Israeli military was minimal:
many contracts and functions with the Israeli military and other
government bodies responsible for gross human rights abuses and atrocity
crimes remain intact. While the review itself is still ongoing, this
narrow admission lays bare the company’s complicity in Israel’s military
machinery.
Moreover, big tech’s involvement in Israel’s war appears to extend
beyond standard service provision. Microsoft engineers have reportedly
provided
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/23/israeli-military-gaza-war-microsoft>both
remote and on-site technical assistance to Israeli forces, including
Unit 8200 (cyber operations and surveillance) and Unit 9900 (geospatial
intelligence and targeting). In fact, the Israeli defense ministry
procured approximately 19,000 hours of Microsoft engineering and
consultancy services, valued at around $10 million. Amazon has likewise
been implicated, reportedly providing
<https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google-microsoft/>not
only cloud infrastructure but also direct assistance in verifying
targets for airstrikes. Google’s role raises additional concerns:
according to internal documents
<https://theintercept.com/2025/05/12/google-nimbus-israel-military-ai-human-rights/>,
the company created a classified team composed of Israeli nationals with
security clearances, tasked explicitly with receiving sensitive
information from the Israeli government that could not be shared with
the broader company. This team is set to deliver “specialized training
with government security agencies” and to participate in “joint drills
and scenarios tailored to specific threats.” No comparable arrangement
seems to exist between Google and any other state, underscoring the
exceptional depth of its collaboration with the Israeli regime.
Profit is not the sole driver of big tech’s deepening entanglement with
Israel’s military; political affinity plays a role as well. Palantir
Technologies, a US-based data analytics and surveillance company known
for its close ties to intelligence and defense agencies, has openly
expressed
<https://www.businessinsider.com/palantir-tech-ceo-lost-employees-over-israel-support-2024-3?op=1>support
for Israel throughout the Gaza genocide. Palantir has partnered with AWS
to deliver tools designed to help clients, such as the Israeli military,
“win in the warfighting context.” The company signed a strategic
partnership
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-12/palantir-israel-agree-to-strategic-partnership-for-battle-tech>with
the Israeli defense ministry to provide technologies directly supporting
the genocidal campaign. Microsoft, too, has longstanding ties with
Israel’s military and security apparatus—ties so close that Netanyahu
once described the relationship as “a marriage made in heaven but
recognized here on earth
<https://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Tech/Microsofts-Nadella-in-Israel-to-mark-25-year-cooperation-446062>.”
By providing direct support to Israeli military operations, tech
companies are not merely supplying infrastructure; they are actively
facilitating and aiding the surveillance, targeting, and execution of
actions that violate international law. In a grim evolution, the
deployment of commercial AI in Gaza marks a chilling frontier: systems
once designed to optimize logistics and decision-making at scale are now
generating kill lists, erasing families, and leveling entire
neighborhoods. Technology developed and maintained by big tech now
underpins warfare, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in Palestine, serving
as a prototype
<https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/project0100/news/book-review-the-palestine-laboratory>for
the future of automated warfare.
*The Future of Warfare*
The Israeli regime has formalized its push toward automated warfare by
creating a dedicated AI research division
<https://www.linkedin.com/posts/directorate-of-defense-research-development_israel-mod-establishes-ai-and-autonomy-administration-activity-7280159345256914944-98TS/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop>within
the IMOD, tasked with advancing military capabilities for a future in
which “battlefields will see integrated teams of soldiers and autonomous
systems working in concert.” This initiative marks a significant shift
toward the normalization of AI-driven combat. Western governments,
including France
<https://www.politico.eu/article/france-wants-its-own-military-ai-algorithms/>,
Germany
<https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/battlefield-disruption-german-military-seeks-to-adapt-as-ai-changes-warfare-a-ebb36190-8b79-4e85-bd21-e765a9fc9857>,
and the US
<https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/15/1115078/phase-two-of-military-ai-has-arrived/>,
are pursuing similar trajectories, racing to integrate artificial
intelligence into their weapons systems and armed forces. Together,
these developments position Israel not only as an early adopter but as a
model for the coming era of algorithmic warfare.
Big tech’s direct provision of digital systems used in Israeli warfare
raises urgent questions about corporate complicity in grave violations
of international law
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In parallel, major tech companies are abandoning their self-imposed
ethical boundaries in pursuit of military contracts. Earlier this year,
both Google
<https://www.wired.com/story/google-responsible-ai-principles/>and
OpenAI
<https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/>quietly
abandoned their voluntary commitments not to develop AI for military
use, signaling a broader realignment with the security and defense
sectors. Within weeks of amending its AI principles
<https://ai.google/responsibility/principles/>, Google signed a formal
partnership with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest arms manufacturer
and a major supplier of weapons to the Israeli military. In November
2024, Meta announced
<https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/open-source-ai-america-global-security/>that
it would make its large language models, called Llama, available to US
government agencies and contractors working on national security.
Lockheed Martin has since integrated
<https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/open-source-ai-america-global-security/>Llama
into its operations.
Joining the AI-for-warfare race, Meta has also partneredwith Anduril, a
defense technology startup, to develop virtual and augmented reality
devices for the US Army. Despite its nonprofit status, OpenAI
collaborated
<https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1107897/openais-new-defense-contract-completes-its-military-pivot/>with
Anduril to deploy its technology on the battlefield. In addition,
Palantir and Anthropic—an AI research and development company backed by
Google—announced
<https://investors.palantir.com/news-details/2024/Anthropic-and-Palantir-Partner-to-Bring-Claude-AI-Models-to-AWS-for-U.S.-Government-Intelligence-and-Defense-Operations/>a
partnership with AWS to “provide US intelligence and defense agencies
access” to its AI systems.
A telling indicator of the deepening convergence between big tech and
ministries of war is the US Army’s decision
<https://defensescoop.com/2025/06/13/army-detachment-201-executive-innovation-corps-meta-openai-palantir/>to
grant senior executives from Palantir, Meta, OpenAI, and Thinking
Machines Labs the rank of lieutenant colonel and to embed them as
advisors within the armed forces. Framed as an effort to “guide rapid
and scalable tech solutions to complex problems
<https://www.usar.army.mil/News/News-Display/Article/4216167/army-reserve-soldiers-front-and-center-of-armys-new-detachment-201-executive-in/>,”
the initiative seeks to make the US military “leaner, smarter, and more
lethal.” The symbolism is hard to miss: Silicon Valley leaders are no
longer merely building tools for the battlefield; they are being
formally integrated into its command structure.
*AI Militarization in a Regulatory Vacuum*
AI militarization is rapidly unfolding in the absence of effective
regulatory frameworks. While states continue to deliberate norms for
autonomous weapons <https://docs.un.org/en/A/79/88>at the UN, no binding
international treaty specifically governs their development or
deployment. Even less regulated are dual-use technologies, such as LLMs
and cloud infrastructure, which are now being embedded in military
operations. Recent national and global conversations
<https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/ai-action-summit-a-missed-opportunity-for-human-rights-centered-ai-governance/>and
regulatory proposals
<https://edri.org/our-work/eu-ai-act-fails-to-set-gold-standard-for-human-rights/>regarding
AI governance, which often focus on upholding privacy and human rights,
largely sidestep the devastating impact of AI systems in conflict zones
<https://www.accessnow.org/human-rights-and-ai-governance/>. The most
illustrative example of this disconnect is Israel’s
<https://www.gov.il/en/pages/ai2024>signing of the Council of Europe’s
AI treaty <https://rm.coe.int/1680afae3c>, which addresses human rights,
democracy, and the rule of law, at a time when credible reports were
emerging about its use of AI-driven targeting in Gaza. While the treaty
contains numerous caveats that limit its effectiveness, Israel’s
signature amid an ongoing campaign of genocide underscores the profound
disconnect between the legal norms being crafted and the battlefield
deployment of the technologies they seek to regulate.
Meanwhile, voluntary guidelines or soft-law mechanisms are routinely
discarded. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
<https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/guidingprinciplesbusinesshr_en.pdf>(UNGPs),
which outline both state obligations and corporate responsibilities to
identify and mitigate human rights risks, are frequently ignored by tech
companies. While these principles clearly state that companies operating
in conflict zones must treat the risk of contributing to gross human
rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law as a
legal compliance issue, tech companies continue to comply selectively.
Microsoft’s belated admission that the Israeli regime used its cloud
infrastructure for mass surveillance in Gaza is a case in point. In May
2025, Microsoft denied
<https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/05/15/statement-technology-israel-gaza/>enabling
the Israeli regime to inflict harm on Palestinians through mass
surveillance, only to reverse course months later with a narrow
admission of misuse of its technology. As mentioned, this admission
exposes the extent to which companies fail to fulfil their
responsibility under the UNGPs to identify and mitigate such harm.
Silicon Valley leaders are no longer merely building tools for the
battlefield; they are being formally integrated into its command
structure
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In this context, international criminal law remains inadequate to
address corporate complicity in war crimes. Both customary law and the
Rome Statute
<https://journals.law.harvard.edu/ilj/2016/07/corporate-liability-under-the-rome-statute/>restrict
criminal liability to natural persons, excluding corporations
<https://sustainability.freshfields.com/post/102het0/corporate-human-rights-responsibility-under-international-criminal-law-reaching>as
legal entities. As a result, pursuing corporate accountability for the
involvement in committing and perpetuating atrocity crimes, including
genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, is a legal struggle
<https://nyujilp.org/corporate-accountability-prosecuting-corporations-for-the-commission-of-international-crimes-of-atrocity>of
its own.
While the prospect of seeing a tech executive stand trial for aiding and
abetting international crimes may seem remote, even modest calls for
regulation and accountability are increasingly under attack. The Trump
administration has folded big tech into its broader pursuit of global
dominance, effectively rendering the industry giants untouchable. In
alignment with industry lobbyists, Trump has pledged to resist
state-level regulation
<https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/trump-vows-retaliation-countries-digital-rules-targeting-us-124984255>of
the tech sector and has already begun rolling back oversight mechanisms.
The sanctioning
<https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/07/sanctioning-lawfare-that-targets-u-s-and-israeli-persons>of
the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, following
the release of her report on corporate complicity
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5923-economy-occupation-economy-genocide-report-special-rapporteur>in
Israel’s unlawful occupation and genocide, further illustrates the
current climate in which the US government and corporations close ranks
to shield themselves from any pursuit of justice and accountability.
Compounded by entrenched anti-Palestinian bias and the persistent double
standards surrounding Israel’s crimes and occupation, these dynamics
have created a permissive legal and political environment that shields
the tech sector from scrutiny. As a result, tech companies can continue
to design, deploy, and support AI-driven targeting systems and mass
surveillance technologies in direct collaboration with the Israeli
military occupation, without oversight or accountability.
Amid this accountability crisis, tech workers are increasingly at the
forefront of challenging corporate complicity. While executives double
down on their business ties with the Israeli regime, dissent within the
tech industry continues to grow <https://www.notechforapartheid.com/>,
as more employees refuse to build the tools that enable genocide,
colonization, and apartheid.The recent termination of Microsoft workers
<http://reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/microsoft-fires-four-workers-on-site-protests-over-companys-ties-israel-2025-08-29/>who
protested the company’s role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza was mirrored
at Google, where employees have faced retaliation
<https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/google-fires-employees-protest-israel>for
opposing collaboration with Israeli military and security agencies.
Organizers from groups such as No Tech for Apartheid
<https://www.notechforapartheid.com/>and the Tech Workers Coalition
<https://techworkerscoalition.org/>have been central in exposing the
industry’s deep entanglement with state violence, often carried out
through opaque and undisclosed military contracts.
*Recommendations*
While resistance within the tech industry continues to grow, Palestinian
civil society and global solidarity movements must intensify efforts to
dismantle the structures that dehumanize Palestinians and treat them as
test subjects for new war technologies.
First, addressing corporate complicity requires confronting the research
partnerships involving private entities, including business enterprises
and academic institutions, which collaborate in developing and scaling
militarized technologies
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5923-economy-occupation-economy-genocide-report-special-rapporteur>.
It also requires examining the funding streams, trade flows, and broader
economic ties that sustain and legitimize Israel’s militarized tech
sector. Often described as the “engine of growth”, Israel’s high-tech
industry is structurally reliant on private and foreign capital
<https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/news/einnovationreport/en/State%20of%20the%20High%20Tech%20Industry%20in%20Israel%202023%20Report%20Submitted%20to%20the%20Minister%20of%20Innovation,%20Science,%20and%20Technology.pdf>.
Around 91% of its funding comes from the private sector, and roughly 80%
of venture capital investments originate from abroad. These figures
underscore how international investors, universities, and corporations
are directly implicated in financing and legitimizing Israel’s
military-tech apparatus. Governments, regulators, and civil society
should press for transparency in financial flows, condition partnerships
on compliance with international law, and pursue divestment or sanctions
against companies complicit in atrocity crimes and systemic human rights
violations.
Second, civil society efforts and legal initiatives focused on
accountability must place greater emphasis on the digital
infrastructures underpinning Israel’s crimes, not only in Gaza but also
in the West Bank. The Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC recently
published its first draft policy on investigating and prosecuting
cyber-enabled crimes
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2025-03/250306-OTP-Policy-on-Cyber-Enabled-Crimes-for-public-consultation.pdf>—an
overdue acknowledgment of the digital dimensions of today’s atrocity
crimes. While prosecuting tech executives for complicity in such crimes
is a complex and long-term undertaking—fraught with challenges of
evidence, intent, and jurisdiction—it offers a path worth exploring.
The 2024 International Court of Justice advisory opinion
<https://www.un.org/unispal/document/report-of-the-secretary-general-icj-19dec24/>on
the illegality of Israel’s occupation makes clear that states are
obligated to refrain from supporting or sustaining that unlawful
presence. This opinion opens the door to legal challenges not only
against governments that maintain economic or military ties with Israel,
but also against corporations domiciled in those states whose
technologies materially facilitate ethnic cleansing and occupation.
Civil society actors should use this opinion to pressure states to
regulate such corporate involvement, pursue litigation where companies
fail to comply, and advocate for divestment from firms that continue to
provide digital infrastructure to the Israeli regime.
Third, fostering stronger alliances between legal advocates and tech
workers is crucial. These collaborations can expose opaque military
contracts, strengthen evidence gathering, and amplify internal dissent
within the industry. By connecting legal strategies with worker-led
resistance, such alliances can both challenge the complicity embedded in
the digital infrastructures of war and apartheid and lay the groundwork
for future accountability mechanisms.
Ultimately, establishing clear accountability mechanisms for military AI
requires governments, regulators, and civil society to collaborate in
closing legal loopholes and reshaping the global tech landscape to
uphold international law. Big tech accountability is particularly urgent
given the accelerating use of AI in warfare, and consequently the
heightened scale, speed, and opacity of AI-driven lethal force.
<https://www.icrc.org/en/statement/we-cannot-let-AI-be-deployed-on-battlefield-without-oversight-and-regulation>In
the case of Palestine, AI technologies supplied by major tech companies
have played a central role in enabling the Israeli regime to wage a
genocidal campaign in Gaza with unprecedented scale and ruthlessness.
Holding these companies accountable is therefore a core component of the
broader pursuit of justice and accountability for Israel’s war crimes.
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