Google has fired 28 staffers for protesting a USD 1.2 billion cloud services contract with the Israeli Occupation - per an internal memo released Wednesday evening seen by CNBC.

“Today we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as needed…Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it,” Chris Rackow, Google’s vice president of global security said in the memorandum sent to google’s employees.

A number of Google’s employees have been protesting “Project Nimbus” - an all-encompassing cloud computing project for the “Israeli” government and its army worth USD 1.2 billion.

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The contract has garnered sharp protests and rebuke, culminating with a number of the company’s employees arranging a sit-in protest at the Google Cloud CEO’s office in New York.

The protestors wore shirts reading “Googlers against genocide” and sat for nine hours at the office before being arrested by authorities.

“We placed employees involved under investigation and cut their access to our systems,” Chris Rackow continued in the memo.

“If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again.”

Protesters also held banners reading “No More Genocide For Profit” and “We Stand with Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers.”

The protestors were released from a New York police station after four hours.

A Google spokesperson claimed in statements made to CNN that the protests “were part of a long-standing campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work” at the company.

The movement “No Tech For Apartheid” who identify as “Tech workers demanding Amazon and Google to drop their Nimbus contract with the Israeli gov and military” has condemned Google’s decision to fire the protesting staffers.

Also Read: Gaza death toll rises to 33,970

“Technology should be used to bring people together, not enable apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonialism. Following in the footsteps of those who fought to divest from apartheid South Africa and won, it’s our responsibility to rise up in support of Palestinian freedom,” says the movement on its website.

It added that Google “built custom tools” and “doubled down on contracting” with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) since the aggression against Gaza broke out.

In response, a Google spokesperson said Google Cloud “supports numerous governments around the world, including the Israeli government” - per CNN.

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