Does Amazon support Israel?

Amazon Web Services, together with Google, won the Israeli government's 'Project Nimbus' tender — a contract reported at roughly $1.2 billion across both vendors — to provide cloud computing infrastructure, AI, and other technology services to the Israeli government and military. AWS was selected as a primary cloud provider for government ministries under the Nimbus framework, which Amazon's own AWS Israel launch release confirms.

Amazon launched the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) cloud region with a planned investment of up to $7.2 billion (about NIS 26.6 billion) in Israel through 2037, estimated by Amazon to add roughly $13.9 billion to Israel's GDP and support an average of 7,700 jobs annually. The region also enables Israeli government workloads to migrate to local AWS data centers under the Nimbus contract.

Amazon acquired Israeli fabless chip startup Annapurna Labs, based in Yokne'am, for a reported ~$350 million. Annapurna became the core of AWS's custom silicon effort (Graviton processors, Nitro), anchoring Amazon's chip development in Israel.

Amazon donated $300,000 (about NIS 1 million) to the Israel Healthcare Foundation, an independent US nonprofit that is the American friends' association of Israel's largest healthcare provider Clalit, to buy masks, ECMO devices and other medical equipment during the COVID-19 crisis. Announced by Amazon on 16 April 2020; the donor is Amazon the corporation, not AWS and not an Amazon foundation.

CEO Andy Jassy called the October 7 attacks on civilians in Israel 'shocking and painful to watch' and said Amazon would assist relief efforts. The company set up an internal page for employee donations to humanitarian missions, began cash donations to relief organizations in the area, and gave its employees in Israel up to NIS 10,000 in financial assistance plus other support — employee-directed and corporate actions, attributed accordingly.

Under Project Nimbus, an appendix to Israel's cloud tender (published 2021, updated 2023) requires state-owned weapons makers Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (whose subsidiary is Elta Systems) to buy their cloud computing from AWS and Google unless a government committee grants an exemption, according to internal procurement documents reviewed by The Intercept. Rafael said in June 2023 it had begun moving 'unclassified' information systems to AWS, and Intercept reporting based on internal financial records found that by 2024-2025 Rafael was also buying AI services through AWS, including access to Amazon's Titan models and to Anthropic's Claude. AWS declined to answer questions from The Intercept about the arrangement or about any human-rights review of it.

An investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call, published August 2024, reported that Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate has stored large volumes of Gaza surveillance data on AWS since the October 2023 invasion, after an Israeli army officer publicly confirmed for the first time that the military uses commercial cloud and AI services. Intelligence sources told the outlets that AWS-hosted data was on occasion used to supply 'supplementary information' ahead of strikes on suspected militants, including strikes that killed civilians. The claims were separately summarized by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Data Center Dynamics. Amazon's only on-record comment, about employee safety and its own humanitarian donations, did not address these specific allegations.

When Amazon.com launched retail operations in Israel in November 2019, it offered free shipping on orders over $49 to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, while customers who listed a 'Palestinian Territories' address were charged up to $24 unless they listed 'Israel' as their country. Amazon told reporters the gap was a logistical issue tied to customs and delivery-partner handoffs, not a policy choice. After a Palestinian Authority complaint and press criticism, Amazon announced in March 2020 that it had resolved the 'technical, legal and logistical challenges' and extended the free-shipping promotion to West Bank Palestinian customers.