Microsoft's Israel chief, accused of technical espionage, resigns

Alon Hymovitch, the head of Microsoft's Israel branch, has decided to resign from his position following an investigation into business dealings with the country's military. This internal inquiry began after The Guardian newspaper revealed that the Israeli military was extensively monitoring Palestinian residents using Microsoft technology.

The investigation, conducted in collaboration with +972 Magazine and Local Call newspaper, revealed that Israel's elite intelligence unit, 'Unit 8200,' had extensively collected phone calls of residents in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank using Microsoft's Azure cloud technology.

The investigation conducted by Microsoft revealed that Unit 8200 had violated the company's terms of service, which prohibit the use of technology for large-scale surveillance. The unit had utilized Azure's high storage capacity and computing power to record and analyze millions of daily phone communications of Palestinian residents. Following these findings, Microsoft has taken steps to revoke the military unit's access to cloud services and Artificial Intelligence (AI) products.

Following this incident, several other managers at Microsoft's Israel branch have also reportedly resigned, which occurred after a serious controversy related to the violation of Microsoft's ethical system. During the investigation, conducted with lawyers from the American law firm 'Covington & Burling,' significant attention was focused on Alon Hymovitch. According to documents, Hymovitch played a key role in developing relations with the intelligence unit after a meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the unit's then-commander in 2021.

However, Microsoft senior executives, including Satya Nadella, have stated that they were unaware that Unit 8200 was using the Azure system to secretly collect Palestinian residents' communications in this manner. Company president Brad Smith had previously emphasized that Microsoft does not provide its technology for monitoring civilians. Although Hymovitch has not directly commented on his resignation, in a message sent to employees, he stated that he had succeeded in establishing Israel as Microsoft's fastest-growing market.