Google has fired more than two dozen employees who publicly protested against the tech giants controversial $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with Israel , as institutions face increased pressure to divest from a government whose U.S.-funded military is in its sixth month of attacking Gaza .

The workers held protests on Tuesday at Googles campuses in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, the latter of which houses the Google Cloud headquarters. Organized by No Tech for Apartheid, the employees participated in a 10-hour sit-in inside the offices including that of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian to protest Project Nimbus, a joint contract with Amazon to provide the Israeli government and military with artificial intelligence and cloud services.

Google had police arrest nine of the protesting employees on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, the tech giant fired 28 employees following an internal investigation, according to a company-wide email from Chris Rackow, Googles vice president for global security. The email was obtained by multiple news outlets.

The protesters took over office spaces, defaced our property and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened, Rackow wrote, adding that employees should expect company leaders to speak more about standards of behavior and discourse in the office.

Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it, he continued. It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to including our Code of Conduct and Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns.

NTFA confirmed what it described as retaliatory firings and arrests in a statement Wednesday , claiming that some of the workers who were fired did not even directly participate in the protest. The organization also vehemently denied Googles allegations that protesters defaced property and impeded the work of their colleagues and pushed back against the companys claim that the protesters were largely not company employees.

This is not just untrue, its insulting. Thousands of our colleagues have joined our call for the company to drop Project Nimbus, supporting the dozens of brave workers who have spoken out publicly about how the contract is impacting their health and safety on the job, the statement said.

Most of all, it is insulting to those of us you just threw out of the company for voicing our concerns about Project Nimbus, as well as for the well-being of our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim colleagues facing Google-enabled racism, discrimination, harassment and censorship, the statement continued, adding that the companys leaders have long ignored concerns raised internally over the contract.