Protest against Israel

Google fires 28 employees after office occupation

The activists had occupied the office of a Google manager for several hours because of an alleged contract with the Israeli government.

(Bild: AP)

Google has dismissed 28 employees for occupying an office space for several hours in protest against a contract between the company and the Israeli government. This was decided after internal investigations, further investigations are being conducted and could lead to further measures, a company spokesperson explained on Thursday.

A group called "No Tech for Apartheid" occupied the office of Thomas Kurian, the manager responsible for the Google Cloud storage service, in Sunnyvale in the US state of California on Tuesday. According to the activists, they remained there for ten hours.

Video footage of the activists published on the online service X showed police officers arresting several Google employees. Protests also took place in New York and Seattle.

The activists had occupied the office of a Google manager for several hours over an alleged contract with the Israeli government.

(Bild: AP)

Google spoke of a "small number" of employees who had disrupted operations at a few Google locations. The protests are part of a "long-standing campaign by a group of organizations and individuals, most of whom do not work at Google".

Google: "No military tasks"
The activist group protested against a cooperation between the technology companies Google and Amazon and the Israeli government worth 1.2 billion US dollars. The protesters referred to a report in "Time Magazine" in April, according to which Google had billed the Israeli Ministry of Defense more than one million dollars for consulting services in a draft contract.

A Google spokesperson pointed out that Israel is one of "numerous" countries with whose governments the company works. The services were not connected to military or intelligence tasks.