Cisco Systems is one of the most consequential – yet least visible – corporations in Silicon Valley. The San Jose-based networking giant, with a market capitalisation in excess of $270 billion and annual revenue of $56.7 billion in 2025, manufactures the routers, switches, firewalls and communications platforms that run the internet’s infrastructure, as well as many of its worldwide corporate, government and military networks.

Cisco makes a point of publicly future for all” in the dozens of countries around the world in which it operates. Yet the company’s aggressive pursuit of contracts with the Israeli government and military – a small yet growing part of its global business – highlighting its commitment to corporate social responsibility and building “an inclusive has led to accusations that behind this sunny facade the networking giant is profiting from genocide.

A new set of leaked documents – provided to Drop Site by whistle-blowers disturbed by the company’s operations in Israel – shows Cisco’s deep and growing collaboration with the Israeli military and intelligence establishment in its regional wars and the genocide in Gaza.

In 2025, an Israeli Air Force officer publicly discussed using Cisco-powered infrastructure to support operations. Tahe anonymous officer, identified as the head of the Israeli Air Force’s operational branch, told a tech conference in Israel that the Air Force had conducted “tens of thousands of attacks” in the past year, and described how IT systems had been vital to enabling this combat activity.

The officer referenced Cisco infrastructure being used by air force intelligence personnel for communications and managing high volumes of operational data – including the use of networking tools by drone operators and ground forces to store and analyse videos and share coordinates for strikes.

Cisco’s work with the Israeli government and military has been documented in public news reports and new business announcements in the country. But the internal documents – including presentations, purchase and revenue record, and schedules –shed light on the rapidly expanding list of services that Cisco has been providing directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defence and other branches of the security state over the past several years.

Cisco did not respond to a request for comment.

The expanding data and network needs of the Israeli defence sector since October 7 and subsequent wars in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Yemen were seen as a promising business opportunity inside Cisco, the documents show, driving increases in revenue as the Israeli government drew more heavily upon networking and data services for its operations.

One internal presentation, outlining increases in revenue and service offerings by Cisco Israel, the company’s Israeli branch, shows that Cisco’s business interests in the country have been driven overwhelmingly by the needs of the Israeli military.

A slide deck comparing revenue results between 2023 and 2025 shows that total Israeli revenue from Cisco operations in the first half of each year rose from $109 million to $150 million between 2023 and 2024.

These results were heavily weighted toward the Israeli Ministry of Defence: $52 million and $98 million of those figures each year were driven by services provided to the Israeli MOD. In the first half of 2025, total revenue declined to $115 million, of which $42 million was attributable to MOD work.

(The presentation was delivered before full year 2025 results were available and compared first half results over the three years.)

Longer term results showed the significant growth of Cisco’s business in Israel, rising from $122 million in total revenue in fiscal year 2015 to $283 million by 2024. In a breakdown of revenue from 2024, $111 million is attributed to “conflict impact.”

The presentation highlights the importance of “capturing defence opportunities” in Israel, with one slide headlined with a quote misattributed to Winston Churchill: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

In a slide focused on how to service the needs of the Israeli MOD, the presentation highlights an opportunity for Cisco: providing support for integrating artificial intelligence in Israeli military operations, along with support for the military’s cybersecurity and networking infrastructure.

Cisco’s plans for continuing the lucrative collaboration were clearly laid out in the presentation. A segment on strategic projects and “Big Bets” includes specific mention of two projects for the Israeli Ministry of Defence (MOD), including an AI computing agreement worth $50 million and a routed optical network agreement valued at $15 million.

“Aircrafts, tanks and any other essential military tools.”

Cisco has long made a point of publicly championing ethical business practices, issuing regular reports highlighting its commitment to community-building, sustainability, education and other positive endeavours all placed under the banner of “social impact.”

Yet documents show that over the same period that Cisco was allegedly impacting “one billion lives positively,” its business in Israel was disproportionately focused on military and intelligence related services.

An April 2021 update report produced by employees of Cisco Israel suggests the company was already making $40-50 million a year from compute contracts with the MOD. Titled “Cisco Israel Ministry of Defence Win,” the report highlights an agreement to provide a new list of itemised services to the Israeli MOD, including enterprise and data centre networking, cybersecurity, and classified network support.

The military applications of the contracts were explicit. For the MOD, the report notes, the services in the Cisco agreement “are as important … as the focus on aircrafts, tanks and any other essential military tools.”

The MOD sees “their Digital capabilities as a critical strength in the Israeli geopolitical situation,” the report assessed, adding that Cisco serves as “the dominant ICT (Information and Communications Technology) partner to the MOD.”

The analysis also makes clear the outsize importance of the Israeli military in particular to Cisco’s business in the country, and vice versa: “The Israel MOD account is a collection of 10 Classified Organizations that represents 50 per cent of Cisco Israel’s revenue. The account’s overall budget is 30 per cent of the government budget.”

Cisco had been gradually scaling up its relationship with the Israeli government and military in the decade prior. In 2013, the company won a $150 million contract to supply communications technology to the Israeli military.

Cisco has also worked on numerous projects providing services to Israeli police while developing both tech hubs and surveillance infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, according to the research centre “Who Profits?,” which monitors corporate collaboration with the Israeli government.

In 2017, Cisco won a $250 million contract to provide servers to the MOD – a contract that was paid for by the US government through its Foreign Military Sales assistance program to Israel, according to a report from the American Friends Service Committee. The company helped set up a major military data centre known as “David’s Citadel” aimed at massively expanding the surveillance and data processing capacity of Israeli military and intelligence units, while providing communications infrastructure directly used in operations.

• A Tell Media report / Source: Drop Site