Amazon sold cloud-computing services to two Israeli weapons manufacturers whose munitions helped devastate Gaza, according to internal company materials obtained by The Intercept.

Amazon Web Services has furnished the Israeli government — including its military and intelligence agencies — with a suite of state-of-the-art data processing and storage services since 2021 as part of its controversial Project Nimbus deal. Last year, The Intercept revealed a provision in that contract requiring Amazon and Google, the other Nimbus vendor, to sell cloud services to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israeli Aerospace Industries, two leading Israeli weapons firms.

New internal financial data and emails between Amazon personnel and their Israeli corporate and governmental clients show that Amazon has consistently provided software to both Rafael and IAI in 2024 and 2025 — periods during which Israel’s military was using their products to indiscriminately kill civilians and destroy civil infrastructure. Rafael purchased artificial intelligence technologies made available through Amazon Web Services, including the state-of-the-art large language model Claude, developed by AI startup Anthropic.

The materials reviewed by The Intercept also indicate Amazon sold cloud-computing services to Israel’s nuclear program and offices administering the West Bank, where Israeli military occupation, population displacement, and settlement construction is widely considered illegal under international law.

Amazon proclaims broad commitments to international human rights values, like most of its Big Tech peers. “We’re committed to identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and addressing adverse human rights impacts connected to our business,” the company’s Global Human Rights Principles website states. “Within Amazon’s own operations, we deploy a variety of mechanisms to conduct due diligence, assessing and responding to risks across the company,” including “human rights impact assessments to assess risks specific to Amazon businesses, including in the sectors and the countries where we operate.”

Amazon declined to comment or respond to a list of detailed questions, including whether it conducted a human rights impact assessment pertaining to selling its services to weapons companies whose products are used in a war widely assessed to be genocidal.

Rafael, Israel Aerospace Industries, and the Israeli Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.

It’s unclear how much money Rafael and IAI paid Amazon for its services. The documents reviewed by The Intercept show that Amazon sold its cloud-computing to Rafael at a discounted rate, though the exact percentage is not disclosed. The materials cite a 35 percent discount for services sold to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, a major Project Nimbus customer; it’s unclear if this rate is provided to Rafael and IAI as well.

Rafael was founded in 1948 as a governmental weapons research lab and, like its American equivalents at Raytheon or Lockheed, has become synonymous with Israeli militarism. Today, the state-owned company manufactures a diverse arsenal of missiles, bombs, drones, and other weaponry for both domestic use and international export. The corporation has thrived since Hamas’s October 7 attacks, reporting record revenues in both 2023 and 2024 that it attributed to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. “2024 was a record year for Rafael, during the longest and most complex multi-front war in Israel’s history,” CEO Yoav Turgeman said last year, referring to the ongoing war with Hamas and related regional conflicts. “Rafael played a significant role in Israel’s military achievements in offense, intelligence and defense.”

IAI, another state-owned weapons firm, is best known for co-developing Israel’s anti-rocket Iron Dome system alongside Rafael. The company also manufactures a wide array of military aircraft, including its Heron line of drones — which the company has boasted about being used to great effect in Israel’s war on Gaza. A November 2023 promotional item about IAI’s drones published in the Jerusalem Post noted that “In the face of the October 7 challenges, the HERON UAS demonstrated its strategic importance by providing real-time intelligence, supporting targeted acquisitions, and aiding in the neutralization of threats.”

Missiles and........

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