By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
JERUSALEM/CAIRO/WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – U.S. tech giant Microsoft has fired two influential employees after they organized a vigil at the company’s headquarters in honor of “victims of the Palestinian genocide.”
The two men, originally from Egypt, told reporters they were dismissed after holding the observance at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on Thursday.
Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr were part of a coalition of Microsoft employees who called themselves “No Azure for Apartheid” in protest against the sale of the Microsoft cloud-computing technology to Israel’s government.
Microsoft said over the weekend that it remains “dedicated to maintaining a professional and respectful work environment. Due to privacy and confidentiality considerations, we can not provide specific details.”
Mohamed, a data scientist from Egypt, complained that Microsoft had “failed to have space for [employees] to come together and share [their] grief.”
He did not mention the “grief” of Israel, which was holding a national day of mourning for the roughly 1,200 people who were killed by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the war in Gaza.
LOOKING FOR WORK
Mohamed said he needs to find new employment within two months, or he may face deportation, presumably to Egypt. It was not clear whether he would be prepared to start a new life in Gaza.
Despite his dismissal, Nasr defended the vigil, saying it was in honor of Palestinian victims in Gaza and to “call attention to Microsoft’s complicity in the genocide” due to the use of its technology by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Israel has vehemently denied its involvement in genocide, saying nearly half of the reported killed Palestinians are “Hamas terrorists.”
The Hamas-run Health Ministry claims that about 43,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel in more than a year of urban warfare in Gaza, which has a population of roughly 2.5 million people.
Nasr was previously subject to internal investigations by Microsoft, including for posting antisemitic memes online on social media, Israeli sources said.
Writing on social media, Nasr called Microsoft “an evil Zionist corporation facilitating and empowering a genocide.”
He revealed that he learned of his termination an hour before receiving a call from Microsoft, as he saw the group Stop Antisemitism announce it on social media.
Stop Antisemitism had called on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella months before to take action against Nasr, who co-founded Harvard Alumni for Palestine and was co-president of the Palestine Solidarity Committee at the university.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
Nuclear material has been discovered in Syria and placed under International Atomic Energy Agency oversight, reviving attention on a clandestine nuclear program that Israel destroyed nearly two decades ago.
The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in on a growing national battle over whether states may require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public-school classrooms, potentially setting the stage for a major First Amendment ruling.
A prominent house church pastor and six other Christians have disappeared after being detained by police in Wenzhou, a major Christian center in eastern China often called the “Jerusalem of China.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner have reached an understanding that Hamas must be fully disarmed and the Gaza Strip demilitarized before reconstruction begins or Israeli forces withdraw, marking a significant narrowing of differences between Jerusalem and the Trump administration over the future of Gaza.
Humanoid robots capable of navigating rugged terrain, detecting people and conducting around-the-clock surveillance could eventually join U.S. Border Patrol operations along the southern border, as an American robotics company moves closer to potential national-security deployments.
Israel carried out an unusual airstrike deep inside northwestern Syria early Tuesday, targeting the strategic Abu al-Duhur military airfield shortly after a Turkish military delegation reportedly visited the base to assess its rehabilitation, according to Israeli and Syrian reports. The operation prompted a rare public rebuke from a senior U.S. envoy.
Newly declassified FBI records released by the White House detail what officials describe as a years-long Chinese intelligence effort to penetrate American political circles through sexual relationships, campaign donations, and strategically placed interns.