McDonald's will repurchase Israeli franchises in response to boycotts

After a boycott of the company in reaction to the Israel-Hamas conflict, fast-food titan McDonald's has decided to purchase back all of its Israeli locations.

The business said that it and franchisee Alonyal had come to an agreement for the restoration of 225 locations nationwide, supporting 5,000 jobs.

Following Alonyal's decision to provide thousands of Israeli soldiers with complimentary lunches, McDonald's faced criticism.

Since the crisis started in October, sales in the area have drastically decreased.

McDonald's said on Thursday that an agreement had been reached with Alonyal, which has been operating the Golden Arches franchise in Israel for over thirty years.

According to the US corporation, it is still "committed to the Israeli market" and that the restaurants, operations, and staff will all be kept "on equivalent terms". The sale's conditions were kept a secret.

Muslim-majority nations including Kuwait, Malaysia, and Pakistan distanced themselves from the company in remarks, accusing it of supporting Israel. This led to the start of the boycott.

The international food chain acknowledged in January that the crisis had "meaningfully impacted" its performance, with its commerce in the Middle East being most negatively impacted but companies in France, Indonesia, and Malaysia suffering.

Chris Kempczinski, the CEO, attributed the negative response to "misinformation," but it nevertheless had an impact on the business and the company missed its first quarterly sales goal in over four years.

McDonald's called the boycott "disheartening and ill-founded". The majority of the company's more than 40,000 outlets worldwide are owned and run by thousands of individual companies. Five percent of them are in the Middle East.

Approximately 1,200 people were killed and 253 hostages were taken by gunmen headed by Hamas during an attack on southern Israel on October 7. As a result, a large portion of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed during Israeli military operations.

At least 34 hostages are thought to be killed, leaving about 130 hostages still in custody.

Since then, more than 33,000 people have died in Gaza, according to the health ministry operated by Hamas in the region.

(Sources: bbc.co.uk)