Microsoft fires employees for organizing vigil for Gaza victims

US tech giant Microsoft has fired employees who organized a vigil to show solidarity with Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip.

Late Thursday, the two employees reported being terminated by Microsoft over the phone, just a few hours after hosting a lunchtime vigil they had organized on the company’s Redmond, Washington campus.

Both of the employees fired by the internationally recognized American company were said to be members of a coalition of anti-Israel employees called “No Azure for Apartheid” that opposed Microsoft’s sale of its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli regime.

They had already organized a commemoration for Gaza martyrs at the company’s headquarters in Seattle.

The US tech firm announced on Friday it had “ended the employment of some individuals in accordance with internal policy” without providing more details.

“We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends or loved ones,” said Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist fired by Microsoft.

“But Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves,” Mohamed added.

Mohamed faces the urgent challenge of securing a new job within the next two months to transfer his work visa and avoid potential deportation.

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Hossam Nasr, another fired employee, explained that the vigil aimed to both honor the victims of violence in Gaza and draw attention to Microsoft’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza due to its technology being utilized by the Israeli military.

Nasr’s termination was revealed on social media by Stop Antisemitism over an hour before he received official notification from Microsoft, he said.

The same group had previously called on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to take action against Nasr for his public stances on Israel.

Nasr, who is also a co-organizer of Harvard Alumni for Palestine, graduated from Harvard University in 2021 and has Egyptian roots.

In a similar move earlier this year, Google fired more than 50 employees over Gaza solidarity protests.

The US tech giant dismissed the workers after they protested the Nimbus deal between the American firm and the criminal Israeli regime.

Protest organizer and spokesperson for No Tech for Apartheid, Jane Chung, said back then that the corporation aimed “to quash dissent, silence its workers and reassert its power over them.”

The Tel Aviv regime waged its brutal war on the besieged Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a retaliatory operation against the occupying entity in response to the Zionists' intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli war machine has killed more than 42,900 till now, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. Some 100,833 more have also been injured in the year-long, ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, according to a Ministry statement.

The United States, Israel’s top-tier international backer, has fast-tracked its delivery of US-made arms and ammunition to the occupying regime since the start of its brutal onslaught in Gaza. The US has also vetoed all UN resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

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