''Our Immediate Focus...'': Sundar Pichai's Message To Google Employees In Israel

As the conflict between Israel and Hamas intensifies, Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a post on X, formerly Twitter, said that he is deeply saddened by the ''terrorist attacks in Israel'' and the ''escalating conflict underway.'' Notably, Google has two offices in Israel one in Haifa and the other in Tel Aviv, and has over 2000 employees. 

The CEO said that the company's immediate focus since Saturday has been employee safety and also shared an update stating that all the local staff have been contacted and will keep helping them. 

''Deeply saddened by the terrorist attacks in Israel this weekend and the escalating conflict underway. Google has 2 offices and over 2,000 employees in Israel. It's unimaginable what they're experiencing. Our immediate focus since Saturday has been on employee safety. We've now made contact with all of our local employees and will continue supporting them.

We're also working to provide reliable, accurate information to people through our products, as well as sharing the cyber activity that our experts are seeing. We'll be supporting humanitarian and relief organizations on the ground. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families,'' his post on X read. 

See the tweet here:

Deeply saddened by the terrorist attacks in Israel this weekend and the escalating conflict underway. Google has 2 offices and over 2,000 employees in Israel. It's unimaginable what they're experiencing. Our immediate focus since Saturday has been on employee safety. We've now… https://t.co/VCiboq9oN8

— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) October 10, 2023

In addition, the search engine giant is actively supporting humanitarian and relief organizations on the ground.

As per 9to5 Google, the company's spokesperson also issued a full statement and wrote, 

“Following the terrible attacks in Israel, our immediate focus has been on ensuring our employees' safety. We've now made contact with all of our local employees, and we'll continue supporting them.

“We're also working to provide reliable, accurate information to people who use our products. Our systems across Google and YouTube prioritize authoritative information in moments of crisis and breaking news. Our teams are working around the clock to ensure this, as well as to detect and remove graphically violent, hateful or terrorist content, or coordinated disinformation campaigns.

Our cybersecurity experts are also sharing their findings in real-time with the broader security community. For example, our security unit, Mandiant, has observed fake accounts connected to Iran which are promoting anti-Israeli narratives across various services, as well as investigating reports of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks by suspected pro-Hamas and pro-Russia hacktivist groups targeting Israeli government websites. Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones, and all those affected." 

Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Satya Nadella also offered his deepest condolences to all those impacted by the war and said he is "heartbroken by the horrific terrorist attacks on Israel" where the company has nearly 3,000 employees.

The combined casualties from both sides have crossed 3,000, according to a report in AFP.