The Israeli government’s computing deal with Google and Amazon contained a warning system alerting it if foreign law enforcement accessed Israeli data, reports show.

The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call have seen leaked Israeli documents stating that the $1.2 billion Nimbus contract, signed in May 2021, contained provisions for a secret tip-off system that would see the cloud providers transfer sums of money corresponding to the telephone dialing code of the foreign country accessing Israeli data.

The payments would be made within 24 hours of the information being transferred, and would range between 1,000 ($307) and 9,999 ($3,070) shekels, with the first few digits representing the country code.

This requirement was introduced because Israeli authorities feared that foreign governments would institute gag orders on hyperscalers when conducting an investigation, preventing Israel from knowing whether its data was being accessed.

Both Google and Amazon denied agreeing to such a requirement when asked for comment by the Guardian. A spokesperson for Israel’s finance ministry said that “the article’s insinuation that Israel compels companies to breach the law is baseless.”

The report also states that both Google and Amazon agreed to strict controls that would prevent them from suspending or withdrawing Israeli’s access to its technology even if it was found to have violated its terms of service. If those companies did decide to cease providing its services, they would incur financial penalties and legal action under the terms of the deal. This was done to ensure that neither could bow to pressure from shareholders and the public.

This exact situation played out in September, when Microsoft cut off some of the services it was providing to the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD) following an internal review of how its cloud platform was being used. The review was prompted by another report by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call, which reported in August that IMOD’s intelligence division, Unit 8200, was using Azure to host audio files from millions of phone calls made by Palestinians.

DCD has reached out to the Israeli government, Google, and Amazon for comment.

Update: Amazon told DCD in a statement:

“We have a rigorous global process for responding to lawful and binding orders for requests related to customer data. AWS carefully reviews each request to assess any non-disclosure obligations, and we maintain confidentiality in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

"While AWS does not disclose customer information in response to government demands unless we're absolutely required to do so, we recognize the legitimate needs of law enforcement agencies to investigate serious crimes. We do not have any processes in place to circumvent our confidentiality obligations on lawfully binding orders.”

A Google spokesperson also told DCD in a statement:

"The accusations in this reporting are false, and imply that we somehow were involved in illegal activity, which is absurd. As is common in public sector agreements, an RFP does not reflect a final contract. The idea that we would evade our legal obligations to the U.S. government as a U.S. company, or in any other country, is categorically wrong.

We've been very clear about the Nimbus contract, what it's directed to, and the Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy that govern it. Nothing has changed. This appears to be yet another attempt to falsely imply otherwise."

Original story continues: Reports of these controls had already emerged when the Nimbus contract was first announced in May 2021. Attorney Zviel Ganz of the legal department at the Israeli Finance Ministry said at the time that the contract would prevent providers from shutting down their services and denying services to particular government entities.

Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip have been subject to intense international scrutiny, and a UN Commission found in September of this year that Israel’s actions in Gaza constituted genocide. Israel has contested these findings. Much of Gaza's infrastructure and buildings have been destroyed, and the estimated death toll in Gaza is between 60,000 and 70,000.

Cloud companies providing services to Israel have faced public and internal backlash. Last month, Amazon suspended an employee for criticizing its relationship with the Israeli government after he emailed a statement to senior executives and posted it to multiple internal Slack channels.

At Microsoft, a dedicated employee group called ‘No Azure for Apartheid’ has been calling for the company to stop providing cloud and AI services to Israel for at least a year, with some employees arrested following attempts to occupy the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington.