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

The leaked documents show Cisco treating its relationship with Israel’s military as a business priority during the Gaza war. The company worked to preserve customer confidence after repeated network failures and sought additional opportunities despite widespread documentation of civilian deaths and growing genocide allegations.

When Israeli intelligence leaders threatened to cancel business because outages created operational risks, Cisco entered crisis mode. Its documents described the client as the Israel Intelligence Force and outlined infrastructure supporting intelligence departments within Israel’s Ministry of Defense. Cisco also tried to expand the relationship: its Splunk subsidiary pitched joining Project Nimbus, the Israeli government’s cloud contract with Google and Amazon.

The disclosures matter because they show commercial technology sales continuing during a major armed conflict. They also intensified internal opposition from Bridge to Humanity, a group of Cisco workers that accused the company of contradicting its stated ethics. Cisco did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment, while Israel’s military declined to discuss contracts or services.

Cisco is a multinational technology conglomerate and one of the world’s largest technology companies. The article describes it as selling the “plumbing” of the internet. That means it provides the underlying equipment and systems that let organizations connect, move, store, and manage digital information.

Its products include routers, servers, and communications systems. Routers direct data between networks. Servers support digital services and information processing. Communications systems help organizations exchange data across their operations. Cisco supplies these technologies to companies, governments, and militaries around the globe, including Israel’s military intelligence community.

That role makes Cisco different from a company known mainly for weapons. Yet the article shows how its equipment can support sensitive military work. Cisco documents described infrastructure for intelligence departments inside Israel’s Ministry of Defense. When that infrastructure failed during wartime, the outages threatened operations and damaged Israeli intelligence agencies’ confidence in Cisco as a network provider.

Israel’s military intelligence contracts generated about $67 million in business for Cisco over the three years described in the article. The figure comes from a 2025 document reviewed by the Guardian. It shows that the relationship was financially significant, even though Cisco’s work with Israel’s military received less public attention than some other technology companies’ involvement.

The contracts concerned technology supporting Israel’s intelligence community. Cisco provided network infrastructure, including routers, servers, and communications systems. The company’s documents referred to its customer as the Israel Intelligence Force, which Cisco described as delivering infrastructure for intelligence departments within Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

The amount helps explain why Cisco worked to protect the relationship after technical failures threatened customer confidence. Israeli intelligence leaders reportedly threatened to cancel the business, prompting Cisco to respond urgently. The leaked documents also show Cisco seeking further opportunities, including a Splunk pitch to join Project Nimbus, while internal employees challenged the company’s role.

Israeli military intelligence networks experienced major, multi-hour outages and repeated crashes. Their built-in debugging mechanisms also failed. The problems began while intelligence operations were being moved through updates to digital infrastructure, then became persistent enough to weaken agencies’ confidence in Cisco, one of their main network providers.

The failures were especially serious because the affected systems supported intelligence operations during the Gaza war. Cisco’s confidential memo warned that repeated outages had severely harmed critical operations during a period of national conflict. When the failures created a risk to operations, Israeli intelligence leaders threatened to cancel their business with Cisco.

Cisco responded by entering crisis mode and trying to restore the relationship. Its documents described the customer as the Israel Intelligence Force, supporting intelligence departments within Israel’s Ministry of Defense. The episode shows that technical reliability is not merely a business concern when private infrastructure carries military data and communications during active conflict.

Splunk, a Cisco subsidiary, sought to participate in Project Nimbus earlier this year. The article describes Nimbus as a controversial cloud-computing contract involving the Israeli government, Google, and Amazon. The leaked documents show Cisco looking beyond its existing military intelligence business toward another major technology opportunity.

Splunk’s platform can process and analyze massive volumes of machine-generated data. That capability fits cloud environments, where large amounts of information can be stored, handled, and examined through digital services. The article does not provide the details of Splunk’s proposal, but it identifies the pitch as an effort to join the Nimbus contract.

The attempted expansion came as civilian deaths in Gaza were extensively documented, international organizations and governments began referring to Israel’s actions as genocide, and Cisco faced internal conflict over its role. Bridge to Humanity objected to the company’s military ties. Cisco did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment, and the Israeli military declined to discuss contracts or services.

Commercial technology becomes part of military operations when governments use it to connect systems, move information, and support decision-making. The article calls Cisco’s products the internet’s “plumbing”: routers, servers, and communications systems that carry data. Those same functions can serve intelligence organizations as well as civilian customers.

The article gives two examples. Cisco documents described infrastructure for intelligence departments within Israel’s Ministry of Defense. Splunk, its subsidiary, offers a platform that processes and analyzes massive volumes of machine-generated data. Together, network equipment and analysis software can help an organization collect, transmit, manage, and examine information, even though the products are not described as weapons.

This connection matters because failures or business decisions can affect wartime operations. Cisco’s outages disrupted Israeli intelligence networks, while the company pursued more military-related business. The leaked documents and employee protests show why the boundary between ordinary technology and military capability is a central issue in the company’s relationship with Israel.

When private companies provide critical systems to governments and militaries, they carry responsibilities beyond ordinary sales. They must provide reliable infrastructure, understand how their products are used, and address risks to people affected by that use. They also face questions about transparency, ethical commitments, and treatment of employees who object.

Cisco’s experience illustrates these risks. Its network failures caused multi-hour outages and repeated crashes in Israeli military intelligence systems during the Gaza war. At the same time, leaked documents showed the company working to retain and expand its military relationship. The EEOC later found reasonable cause to believe Cisco oversaw a hostile work environment involving racist rhetoric toward Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim employees.

The broader issue remains unresolved in the article. Cisco disputed the EEOC’s findings and did not answer the Guardian’s request for comment. Bridge to Humanity called the company’s conduct inconsistent with its values. The case suggests that technology providers may face operational, legal, reputational, and human-rights consequences when their infrastructure supports armed conflict.