KFC faces battering over Palestine in Malaysia, over 100 units shut

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – American fast-food chain KFC has shut more than 100 units as US businesses around the world face battering over Palestine.

The KFC had to reduce its operations across Malaysia, mostly in northeastern Kelantan state, following calls for a boycott of the businesses, amid protests over US support to Tel Aviv, in the aftermath of Israeli attacks on the Palestinian besieged enclave of Gaza since Oct. 07 last year.

“QSR Brands, which owns and operates the KFC fast-food franchise in Malaysia, is suspending 108 outlets nationwide,” daily The Straits Times reported on Monday, citing a local Chinese-language newspaper.

Footfall of customers at KFC brand restaurants has dried up in recent weeks and the American food chain has been forced to wind up its operations in the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nation where it runs over 600 units.

“KFC is not on the BDS list of targeted companies. But many Malaysians see any American fast-food operator to be related to Israel, including KFC,” Professor Mohd Nazari Ismail, chairman of the pro-Palestinian group Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Malaysia, told the Singapore-based newspaper.

BDS is a global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel over its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.

The report claimed that KFC was seeing the boycott of its businesses "as an opportunity to cease" some of its operations "that have weighed on its balance sheet."

Early this month, KFC was forced to shut its first branch in Algeria just two days after its opening, following protests over US support to Israel.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 which killed some 1,200 people.

Besides killing more than 34,400 Palestinians since then, the military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3 million people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless and at risk of famine.​​​​​​​