Google employees arrested after staging sit-in to protest contract with Israel

Several Google employees were arrested on Tuesday after staging a sit-in to protest the company's $1.2 billion contract with Israel, known as Project Nimbus.

The disruptions occurred at Google offices in New York, California, and Washington. Law enforcement arrested nine of the dozens of employees who protested at these locations, according to Jane Chung, a spokesperson for the protestors.

Those arrested were involved in occupying Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office in Sunnyvale, California, and the 10th Floor of Google's offices in Manhattan, New York. Google employees who protested in Seattle, Washington were reportedly not arrested.

According to a video that one of the protesters took, New York police officers entered the Google office and calmly warned demonstrators that they would be arrested if they did not leave. The employees refused to leave, which resulted in officers asking them to put their hands behind their backs to be arrested. 

At the demonstration in California, an individual approached the demonstrators, informed them that they had been placed on administrative leave, and requested that they depart willingly. He then contacted law enforcement.

Shortly after, the demonstrators were taken into custody by the police and accused of criminal trespassing, according to a local Fox affiliate.

The sit-ins simultaneously occurred at 2 pm EST.

According to the Washington Post, Bailey Tomson, a Google spokesperson, said "Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and we will investigate and take action."

"These employees were put on administrative leave, and their access to our systems was cut. After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety," Tomson added.

To express opposition to the project, Google staff members founded an internal "No Tech for Apartheid" group that has more than 200 members and has been active since October.

Since its signing in 2021, the Nimbus contract has faced opposition from select employees and outside activists. However, in the seven months since Hamas's October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, Israel has been criticized for continuing its war in Gaza, sparking a surge in protests.

Google employees have disrupted traffic, distributed internal emails, and staged a "die-in" outside one of Google's San Francisco buildings in December.