Google fires more workers who protested its deal with Israel, activists say
A group called No Tech For Apartheid says Google fired at least 20 more workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid its war on Gaza.
It said that brings the total number of terminated staff to at least 50.
This is the latest sign of internal turmoil at the tech giant centred on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2bn contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.
Workers held sit-in protests last week at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. The company responded by calling police, who made arrests.
US pro-Palestine campus protests spread to Minnesota
A video posted on X shows “upwards of 1,000 [University of Minnesota] students and staff” protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza, according to activist Sean Lim. Similar protests are taking place across the US, and have been met with a heavy-handed response from university administrations and local police departments.
Palestine solidarity rallies held at Columbia, Yale, Harvard and New York University
Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from New York, said student demonstrators from New York University (NYU) gathered for hours in a park just off the campus to protest against Israel’s war on Gaza.
The protest moved to the park following the mass arrest of 133 students and teachers who participated in a protest on the NYU campus the night before. “As news spread of their arrests, so have demonstrations around the country – at other colleges and universities,” Saloomey said.
US police arrest Pro-Palestinian Jewish protesters outside Senator’s New York home
Hundreds of protesters were reportedly arrested after holding a demonstration on the “doorstep” of US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s home in New York’s Grand Army Plaza.
Organised by the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) lobby group, the protest was presented as a “seder on the street” on the second night of the week-long Jewish feast of Passover. Following speeches from writers, performers and rabbis, protesters moved to block the streets surrounding the Plaza and arrests were made by the New York Police Department, according to the Reuters news agency.
The JVP shared photos on social media of the arrests and police moving demonstrators taking part in a sit-down protest and chanting: “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea”. According to JVP, the protesters were demanding “the US stop arming and funding the Israeli government as it carries out a genocide” in Gaza.
