Google has fired 28 employees after they participated in a protest against the tech giant’s $US1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government.

Organised by the No Tech For Apartheid group, a number of Google employees took part in a 10-hour sit-in protest at offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California.

The Google workers occupied the 10th floor of Google’s Manhattan office and the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in Sunnyvale.

The protesters demanded that Google pull out of its $1.9 billion ($US1.2 billion) contract, known as Project Nimbus, with the Israeli government.

This involves Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services providing cloud computing and artificial intelligence services for the Israeli government and military.

The protesting Google workers raised concerns that their products will be used against Palestinians in Gaza during the ongoing conflict.

In a memo to all employees, Google vice-president of global security Chris Rackow said that 28 workers had been sacked.

“They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Rackow said in the memo.

“Their behaviour was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened. Behaviour like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it.

“It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to – including our code of conduct and policy on harassment, discrimination, retaliation, standards of conduct and workplace concerns.”

Google employees protest. Photo: Supplied

‘Flagrant act of retaliation’

In a statement, No Tech For Apartheid slammed Google over the firings.

“This evening, Google indiscriminately fired 28 workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic, bicoastal 10-hour sit-in protests,” the statement said.

“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $US1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers – the ones who create real value for executives and shareholders.”

During the protests, police made four arrests in New York and five arrests in California for criminal trespassing.

These individuals were booked and released.

Google also last month fired an employee who publicly slammed the company over the same contract at a tech conference, accusing it of “powering genocide”.

Project Nimbus was announced in 2021.

Under the deal, Google reportedly cannot stop providing services due to boycott pressure. The deal provides the “government, the defence establishment and others with an all-encompassing cloud solution”.

A Google spokesperson said the contract is “not directed at highly sensitive, classified or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services”.

The No Tech For Apartheid organisation said that Google is continuing to “lie to its workers, the media and the public” over this deal.

“Google is terrified of us,” it said.

“They are terrified of workers coming together and calling for accountability and transparency from our bosses.

“They are choosing to reveal the falsity of Google’s ‘open culture’ in order to get rid of a threat.

“The corporation is trying to downplay and discredit our power.”

Google previously terminated a contract with the US Department of Defence that saw it using machine learning to analyse data from drones after widespread employee protests and a number of workers resigning.

Earlier this month it was revealed that Google had made a series of changes to its internal employee message board due to arguments about the war in Gaza.

Google removed the virtual thumbs-down feature and the ability to see how popular other posts had been in an effort to tone down feuds on the messaging platform.