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
The Trump administration on Friday released the first batch of formerly classified government documents, videos, and photographs related to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), opening decades of mysterious military and government reports to public scrutiny.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a three-day ceasefire and a large-scale prisoner exchange, marking the latest diplomatic breakthrough in the more than four-year war that has devastated both nations and reshaped global geopolitics.
Indonesia was dealing with the aftermath of several deadly natural disasters Saturday, with authorities saying at least three hikers were killed in a volcanic eruption and three others died after torrential rain triggered a landslide earlier this week.
Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday he is ready to face justice if prosecuted over alleged corruption accusations and defended his record as Hungary’s longest-serving government leader in recent history.
Three Greek Catholic parishes can no longer continue operating legally in autocratically ruled Belarus after their mandatory applications for “re-registration” were rejected by a regional court, well-informed Christians told Worthy News.
The U.S. economy added 115,000 jobs in April, far surpassing economists’ expectations and signaling that the labor market may be showing renewed strength even as inflation and global instability continue weighing on American households. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, according to new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Supreme Court of Virginia delivered a major political blow to Democrats on Friday, striking down the state’s newly approved congressional district map that would have heavily favored Democratic candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.