Dozens of Google employees began occupying the company's offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, on Tuesday to protest the company's $1,2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli government. 
The sit-in, organized by activist group No Tech for Apartheid, is taking place at Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office in Sunnyvale and at Google's 10th floor offices in New York. The sit-in will be accompanied by outdoor protests at Google's offices in New York, Sunnyvale, San Francisco, and Seattle. Tuesday's actions mark an escalation in a series of recent protests organized by tech workers opposed to their employer's relationship with the Israeli government, especially in light of Israel's ongoing offensive on Gaza. Since Hamas killed about 1.100 Israelis on October 7, the IDF has killed more than 34.000 Palestinians.
More than a dozen people gathered outside Google's offices in New York and Sunnyvale on Tuesday. Among them is Google's cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield, who was fired when he contradicted Google's CEO in Israel at March's Mind The Tech, a company-sponsored conference on Israel's tech industry, in early March. Several hours into the sit-ins on Tuesday, Google security began accusing workers of "trespassing" and disrupting work, prompting several people to walk out while others vowed to stay until they were forced out. The 2021 contract, also known as Project Nimbus, concerns Google and Amazon. Under the contract, the two companies jointly provide infrastructure and cloud computing services to branches of the Israeli government. Last week, Time reported that Google's Project Nimbus is providing direct services to the Israel Defense Forces.
On March 4, more than 600 Google employees signed a petition against the company's sponsorship of the conference. After Hatfield was fired (three days later), Google's trust and security policy officer, Vidana Abdel Khalek, resigned from her position because she did not agree with Project Nimbus.
Hasan Ibraheem, a Google software engineer, participates in the sit-in at Google's local office in New York.
"This was really the culmination of our efforts," he reported to Wired. Since joining No Tech for Apartheid in December, Ibraheem has been participating in weekly actions held in coffee shops at Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale, San Francisco, and Mountain View, California. During his lunch break he holds up a banner that says “Ask me about Project Nimbus,” handing out flyers and answering questions from colleagues.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
