Sundar Pichai’s email to employees on Israel-Hamas war: ‘Terrible attack on civilians’

Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a company-wide email on Israel attacks

Sundar Pichai reached out to every Google employee via a company-wide email just hours after the Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Saturday. He said the company had managed to establish contact with all employees working in or travelling to Israel, and would continue supporting them. The full text of the email has been accessed by ‘9 to 5 Google’.

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, reiterated the sentiments expressed in his email in a post shared on X this morning. Expressing his sadness at the escalating conflict, he said that the company’s priority is ensuring employee safety.

“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,” he wrote. “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.”

Pichai said that Google will lend its support to humanitarian and relief organisations working on the ground.

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

Important to call out and stand against antisemitism at this terrible moment. It’s never acceptable. Proud to sign this commitment to raise awareness and condemn this historic evil. https://t.co/5K0JTg9jIt https://t.co/enbn1g4nKE— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) October 12, 2023

In retaliation, Israeli warplanes hammered the Gaza Strip neighbourhood by neighbourhood on Tuesday, reducing buildings to rubble and sending people scrambling to find safety in the tiny, sealed-off territory. Israel has stopped entry of food, fuel and medicines into Gaza, and the sole remaining access from Egypt shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit near the border crossing.

Google has two offices in Israel – in Haifa and Tel Aviv. Read the text of Pichai’s email below:

“I’m sure by now you’ve all seen the news of the terrible attacks on civilians in Israel, and the escalated conflict now underway.

Google has two offices and more than 2,000 employees in Israel, and it’s unimaginable what they are experiencing right now. Our priority is making sure that every Googler in the area is accounted for and safe — beyond our employees based locally, we have identified more who were traveling there. GSRS is continuing safety checks as we speak — locating every employee and ensuring they have the best security information we can offer from our experts. We’ve spent today connecting with most of them, but it will take some time to reach everyone.

“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.”

(With inputs from AP)