28 Google employees are let go in protest over an Israeli cloud deal

Google announced on Thursday that it has let go of 28 workers after some of them took part in demonstrations against the Israeli government’s cloud contract.

A limited number of protesting employees entered and interfered with work at a few unidentified office sites, according to the Alphabet (GOOGL.O) company.

“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behaviour,” the business stated in a statement.

Google announced that it had completed individual investigations, leading to the dismissal of 28 workers, and that it will carry out more research and take further action as required.

Google employees connected to the No Tech for Apartheid campaign described the firing as a “flagrant act of retaliation” and noted that some of the sacked employees were not actively involved in Tuesday’s demonstrations. They made this claim in a statement posted on Medium.

The statement went on to say that Google employees are free to peacefully demonstrate against the terms and circumstances of their employment.

The group demonstrating claims that Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract given to Google and Amazon.com (AMZN.O) in 2021 to provide cloud services to the Israeli government, encourages the Israeli government’s development of military hardware.

Google defended the Nimbus contract in its statement, saying that it “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”

Google protests are nothing new. Employees successfully pressured the business in 2018 to revoke Project Maven, a contract with the US military to analyze aerial drone footage for possible use in combat.