Google announced on Thursday that it had terminated 28 employees following protests against the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government.
The Alphabet unit revealed that a small group of protesting employees disrupted work at unspecified office locations, breaching company policies.
“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies and completely unacceptable behavior,” Google stated in a released statement.
Read: Google Employees Arrested for Anti-Israel Protest
Following individual investigations, Google concluded that 28 employees were to be terminated, with ongoing investigations underway to address further actions as necessary.
In response, Google workers affiliated with the No Tech for Apartheid campaign condemned the terminations, labeling them a “flagrant act of retaliation.” They noted that some fired employees did not directly participate in the protests.
“Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor,” the campaign asserted in a statement on Medium.
The protesting faction opposes Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract awarded to Google and Amazon.com in 2021 to supply cloud services to the Israeli government, alleging its support for the development of military tools.
“Google has built custom tools for Israel’s Ministry of ‘Defence’ and has doubled down on contracting with the Israeli occupation forces since the start of its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” the group stated.
In contrast, Google maintained that the Nimbus contract “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”