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
Republicans have received a major boost in the battle for House control after a series of court rulings dramatically shifted the redistricting landscape ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the war against Iran is “not over,” declaring that Israel and its allies must ensure Tehran’s remaining enriched uranium and nuclear-enrichment infrastructure are removed or dismantled before the threat can be considered neutralized.
British paratroopers and military medics were deployed to the world’s most remote inhabited island after a suspected hantavirus case linked to a deadly cruise ship outbreak triggered international health concerns.
The United States endured its worst spring drought on record last month, with more than 60% of the lower 48 states experiencing moderate drought or worse conditions, according to federal monitoring agencies. The rapidly intensifying crisis is raising concerns over food prices, agricultural production, and an already severe wildfire season stretching across multiple regions of the country.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Iran rejected each other’s latest peace proposals aimed at ending the 10-week war, sending the U.S. dollar higher against major currencies as investors sought safety amid renewed Middle East uncertainty.
A tense calm settled over Moscow Sunday after Russia’s annual Victory Day Parade was overshadowed by fears of Ukrainian drone and “terror attacks,” with the Kremlin reportedly increasingly concerned about the security of President Vladimir Putin following a rare strike on the Russian capital.
Senior Trump administration official Ambassador Monica Crowley declared this week that the American public will soon receive concrete evidence supporting President Donald Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 presidential election in a landslide — a statement that signals the administration is moving from assertion to action on one of the most contested issues in recent American political history.