Cisco’s Israeli Military Deals in Focus: What the Leaks Reveal

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Cisco’s Israeli Military Deals in Focus: What the Leaks Reveal.

Cisco Expanded the Military Relationship Despite Employee Protests

The decisive lead lies in internal documents leaked by company employees. They show how Cisco expanded its relationship with the Israeli military while the war in Gaza continued. The company did not merely rely on existing contracts: the documents refer to a “customer success story”, an internal presentation title used by Cisco to honor successful customer service.

The timeline goes back a long way. Contracts with Israel’s military intelligence structure generated approximately 67 million US dollars for Cisco over three years, according to a document reviewed in 2025. The internal documents also show that Cisco was already working with Israel’s security state before 2023 and continued to do so during the war.

The company came under pressure from within. Current and former employees criticized Cisco’s role in the Gaza war as a “shocking and complete contradiction of values.” The group “Bridge to Humanity” wrote that the company had become an instrument of genocide and was no different from an arms company that supplies bombs and fighter jets.

Cisco did not publicly comment on The Guardian’s request. A spokesperson for the Israeli military said that the Israel Defense Forces are supported by services from numerous companies, but declined to comment on individual contracts with other companies.

Multi-Hour Outages Put Critical Intelligence Networks Under Pressure

The technical problems began one year after the Gaza war started. At the time, networks belonging to Israel’s military intelligence community were affected by multi-hour outages and repeated crashes. Built-in troubleshooting mechanisms failed. The disruptions occurred while the intelligence services were updating their digital infrastructure.

A confidential Cisco memo from September 2025 clearly describes the consequences: the repeated outages severely disrupted critical operations during the war and caused lasting damage to customer sentiment. The problems had become so persistent that they weakened intelligence agencies’ trust in one of the most important network providers.

According to Cisco employees, the outages and blackouts endangered intelligence agencies’ access to military data. The internal documents refer to this entity as the “Israel Intelligence Force,” or IIF. This apparently refers to the military intelligence directorate Aman, which provides critical network infrastructure for several intelligence departments within Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

Cisco responded to the outage risk with a crisis response. Several internal teams worked for several months to correct the errors. Executives were activated to save the customer account classified as “critical.” After the systems had been stabilized and the Sapir unit had been supported, Cisco recorded that the customer was satisfied during the period between 2024 and the summer of 2025. The recovery was subsequently included in an internal presentation as a “customer success story.”

Cisco sent employees to visit on-site during the war under “extreme security conditions.” The aim was to resolve the problems, train the unit, restore trust and reverse the customer’s sentiment. According to the report, Sapir had been responsible since October 7 for moving Israel’s intelligence apparatus underground.

From Stabilizing Legacy Networks to New AI Contracts

The leaks do not end with the repair of existing infrastructure. They show a company systematically pursuing further opportunities. The documents confirm dozens of deals that Cisco worked on in 2026 with various Israeli government agencies, including the intelligence community, air force and navy. Many proposals were labeled “AI.”

Particularly striking is Splunk’s attempt to participate in Project Nimbus. Splunk is a Cisco platform for processing and analyzing large volumes of machine-generated data. The controversial cloud contract is between the Israeli government, Google and Amazon. The documents show Splunk executives’ efforts to gain a foothold. It is unclear whether the deal was ultimately concluded.

This creates a close connection between the network incidents and the business strategy. Cisco was not merely seeking to satisfy an existing military customer. The company wanted to secure the relationship, win additional contracts and expand its role as a provider of the technical “plumbing” for digital data exchange.

The Military Role Confronts Cisco on Multiple Fronts

Reactions within the company were not limited to technical criticism. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) concluded that there was reasonable cause to believe that, following October 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza, Cisco had tolerated a hostile work environment for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim employees, including racist remarks that violated their rights. Cisco disputed the finding and said it is committed to equal treatment in the workplace.

The financial side also refuses to ignore the issue. A group of investors is urging Cisco to commission an independent human rights review of its business with the Israeli military. Shareholders are to vote on a corresponding resolution at the upcoming annual general meeting. The dated Project Nimbus, the documented outages and the internal “customer success story” presentations turn the allegation into a concrete question for review: How closely is Cisco’s infrastructure actually tied to military operations, and what consequences does that have for employees, customers and the company itself?