In a dramatic turn of events, nine Google employees were arrested during an eight-hour sit-in at the company's offices in New York and California on Tuesday night. The workers were protesting against Google's involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government contract for cloud computing services. The arrests were captured on video by workers in the New York office.

The protest saw employees at the Sunnyvale, California, campus occupy the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, while workers in New York held a sit-in in the common area of the Chelsea office's 10th floor. Police officers and a Google employee informed the remaining protesters in the New York office that they were being placed on administrative leave and denied access to the building. When the protesters refused to leave voluntarily, they were warned that they would be arrested for trespassing.

Simultaneously, workers at the Sunnyvale office livestreamed their protest on Twitch and recorded the moment they were arrested. The employees who were arrested on Tuesday subsequently called on Google to withdraw from the controversial Project Nimbus contract, criticizing the company for betraying their trust, AI Principles, and humanity.

Project Nimbus, first announced in 2021, has been a source of sustained internal protests at both Google and Amazon. Tech workers from both companies, under a campaign named No Tech for Apartheid, have been urging their employers to end the contract. Opposition to Project Nimbus intensified during the recent conflict between Israel and Gaza. In March, Google fired a software engineer, Eddie Hatfield, who publicly protested against the project.

Furthermore, more than 600 Google workers signed an open letter urging the company's leadership to cease its sponsorship of Mind the Tech, an annual Israeli tech conference. The workers argue that their purpose at Google is not to develop technology that supports "genocide, apartheid, or surveillance."

In response to the ongoing protests, Anna Kowalczyk, the external communications manager for Google Cloud, emphasized that Project Nimbus is not related to the Israeli military. According to Kowalczyk, the contract involves workloads running on Google's commercial cloud for Israeli government ministries, which agree to comply with the company's policies.

However, a recent report by TIME stated that Google is providing cloud computing services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with evidence of a contract referring to an "Israel/Nimbus deal." This revelation served as a catalyst for the latest wave of protests by the Google employees.

In light of the escalating situation, Kowalczyk condemned the protests as a violation of company policies, stating that they were primarily driven by external organizations and individuals who are not Google employees. Google intends to investigate the matter and take appropriate action.

The arrests of the protesting Google employees highlight the growing discontent within the tech industry regarding controversial contracts and ethical considerations. As the consequences of such decisions become increasingly highlighted, the employees continue to demand accountability and ethical responsibility from their employers.