Amazon: delivering the infrastructure of genocide 

Ethical Consumer has been calling for a consumer boycott of Amazon since 2012 for its systematic approach to corporation tax avoidance around the world. Since then, a wide range of other criticisms have been levelled at the company. Most recently, it has become the focus of attention for its complicity in the Gaza genocide.

In 2021, Amazon Web Services (AWS) signed a $1.22 billion contract with the Israeli state, alongside Google. Known as Project Nimbus, it promised vast cloud storage, artificial intelligence tools, and analytics to “the Government, the Security Services and other entities.”

Nimbus provides the backbone for Israel’s apartheid regime and its war on Gaza. Despite Amazon’s claims to publicly characterise Nimbus as a civilian project, Israeli officials themselves have credited the project with giving the military new capabilities during airstrikes. At a Nimbus conference, Israel’s National Cyber Directorate head Gaby Portnoy said “Phenomenal things are happening in battle because of the Nimbus public cloud, things that are impactful for victory.” Investigations also show AWS servers storing the intelligence that guides bombing runs and tracks entire populations under occupation. 

This is the new economy of genocide – not just missiles, but cloud contracts, machine learning models, and surveillance databases – and Amazon is profiting. 

Amazon is delivering more than packages, it's now delivering the infrastructure of genocide.

The Cloud as a weapon

Israel’s assault on Gaza has been described by UN experts as genocide. More than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023; most of the population has been repeatedly displaced; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and experts have declared a forced famine in Gaza City. To call Nimbus merely a storage contract is to misunderstand modern warfare. 

AI programs with chilling names like Lavender and Gospel are reported to generate “kill lists” and target recommendations, processed through Nimbus servers. Cloud infrastructure is what allows the Israeli military to ingest and analyse vast amounts of data: satellite images, intercepted communications, drone footage, facial recognition records. 

AWS doesn’t just sell storage space, it provides the processing power and AI tools that make this mass killing “efficient”. When internal Israeli military cloud capacity overloaded during the 2023–24 attack on Gaza, Amazon, Google and Microsoft stepped in to provide critical support — essentially acting as digital reinforcements. IDF Col. Racheli Dembinsky recently described cloud technology as part of “a collection of systems with which the IDF fights to the end,” calling the cloud a platform that is in effect a weapon. 

Employee resistance within Amazon

From the start, tech workers knew what was at stake. In 2021, anonymised employees from Amazon and Google published an internal letter that read: “We are morally obligated to speak out against violations of these core values”, demanding the companies withdraw from Nimbus.

That dissent has only grown since. In 2024, over 1,700 Amazon staff petitioned CEO Andy Jassy, accusing AWS of “bolstering the artificial intelligence and surveillance capabilities of the Israeli military used to repress Palestinian activists and impose a brutal siege on Gaza.” Those who speak out risk retaliation. In September 2025, it was reported that Amazon suspended an engineer who had urged colleagues to oppose Amazon’s Israel ties under company conduct policies. 

The backlash at Google has been more widely publicised, with over 50 employees dismissed following sit-ins protesting Nimbus. But as the largest cloud provider on the planet, Amazon’s role is just as central. 

The wider web of complicity

Amazon’s involvement in the Israeli occupation of Palestine isn’t limited to Project Nimbus. Its subsidiary Ring – already condemned for partnering with US police forces – markets surveillance tools built on the same technologies that human rights groups warn are used to monitor and control Palestinians. Campaigners note that Amazon’s facial recognition products, like Rekognition, have been trialled in law enforcement and border security, reflecting the same racialised surveillance dynamics that underpin Israeli apartheid. 

The 2025 UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, has named Amazon among 48 corporations complicit in sustaining the Gaza genocide. This is not a question of indirect ties. By hosting intelligence, enabling surveillance, and providing the AI engines of mass violence, Amazon is an active participant.

Genocide does not happen in a vacuum. It is sustained by corporations that profit from atrocity while hiding behind jargon and contracts. For many consumers and regulators, AWS is invisible and that opacity is part of the danger. Amazon’s servers are the hidden scaffolding of Israel’s destruction of Gaza.