Digital Rights Weekly Update: 6 - 12 November 2026

Policy Insight

This week’s reporting exposes how deeply major technology companies are involved in the infrastructure of occupation, military operations and the suppression of Palestinian voices. Leaked documents show Cisco expanding its business with Israeli military and intelligence agencies during the Gaza genocide, while Microsoft faces growing scrutiny over its data infrastructure and role in AI-driven surveillance. The targeting of Palestinian journalists also continues through censorship, account restrictions and cyberattacks, alongside international media and AI systems that distort or erase Palestinian narratives. These developments demand closer scrutiny of corporate complicity, stronger accountability for technology providers, and meaningful protections for Palestinian journalists and digital rights. As surveillance technologies tested in Palestine expand globally, their implications reach far beyond Palestine. Stay tuned as 7amleh continues documenting these practices and examining the responsibilities of the companies enabling them.

News Digest

A ‘customer success story’: leaked documents show Cisco doubled down on Israeli military deals during Gaza war

The guardian 

A year into the war in Gaza, the networks of Israel’s military intelligence community were plagued with technical problems. There were major, multihour outages to their systems, and repeated crashes. Built-in debugging mechanisms failed. The problems, which started as intelligence operations were undergoing updates to digital infrastructure, became so persistent as to undermine the “confidence” of Israeli intelligence agencies in one of their top network providers: the multinational tech conglomerate Cisco. “This series of events happened during the period of war, deeply impacting customer sentiment,” warned a confidential memo drafted by Cisco and obtained by the Guardian. “During a period of national conflict, these repeated outages severely impacted critical operations.” The September 2025 draft memo was part of a trove of internal documents leaked by Cisco workers furious with the company’s ties to Israel’s military three years into the war, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians.

Mahmoud Hrebat: “We have the right as Palestinians to tell our own story”

Qurium Media Foundation

For Mahmoud, however, the threats facing Palestinian media go far beyond the physical dangers of reporting from the ground. Digital censorship has become a major obstacle, including systematic shadow-banning, algorithmic restrictions and content removal across social media platforms. Mahmoud says these are among the greatest structural challenges they face. His own social media profiles have been restricted, while Lammet Sahafa’s institutional accounts have experienced stagnant audience growth. The organization also faces frequent cyberattacks, bot-driven reporting campaigns and DDoS attacks, particularly during periods of intensified conflict. That is why partnering with Qurium Media Foundation became, in Mahmoud’s words, “a critical strategic step” to secure hosting and protect their platforms against targeted cyber threats.

Protesters break into Microsoft data centre site in Amsterdam

Aljazeera 

Protesters in the Netherlands have broken into a construction site for a new Microsoft data centre in Amsterdam, the latest action in a growing movement sweeping Europe. Several hundred activists occupied the site in the Sloterdijk district on Friday, responding to a call for a two-day protest across Europe against data centres, which handle the large processing workloads associated with artificial intelligence (AI). Demonstrators clashed with police as some climbed a crane and set off flares. Nathan Timmer, of the protest group Geef Tegengas – which translates as Push Back – told local broadcaster AT5 that demonstrators were occupying the site in an effort to stop construction. “We don’t want it to be built. Nobody needs it,” Timmer said. “The only thing this will be used for is AI slop. AI warfare, data surveillance and committing genocide. We don’t want that.” Pro-Palestinian activists also joined the demonstrations in the Dutch capital. By late afternoon police were escorting activists off the construction site, though some remained, local media reported.

Media’s Role in Legitimising Genocide in Gaza

The India Forum 

The report is based on an analysis of three mutually reinforcing actions. The first is the systematic targeting of Palestinian media, its workers, and telecommunications infrastructure. The second is Israel’s effective control of information through censorship, access restrictions, and media advertising campaigns that normalise and promote genocidal acts and their denial. The third is the role of influential international media and digital platforms that reproduce Israeli narratives, block Palestinian voices, ignore criticism of Israel’s actions, and reframe the debate to legitimise the acts of genocide. In the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel has historically silenced Palestinian media, targeted media workers, and imposed restrictions on their movement and access to technology and equipment. Since October 2023, Israel’s reprisals against Palestinian journalists increased significantly with the killing of 300 journalists and wounding of more than 400. Israeli forces killed around 70 journalists as reprisal for their work as journalists.