A Palestine supporter in the United Kingdom threw a box full of painted rats inside a McDonald’s allegedly because the chain supports Israel amid the ongoing war against Hamas. The shocking video clip, captioned ‘enjoy your rat burgers’, begins with a man holding onto fake number plates that read ‘PAIISTN’ and ‘Free Palestine’ as he arrives in his car. He can be seen stopping outside a McDonald’s joint in Birmingham.
In the video, he is then observed with boxes containing rats, each of them painted with the colours of the Palestinian flag. Furthermore, he is wearing what appears to be a Palestinian flag on his head as he enters McDonald’s.
He then proceeds forward and shows a group of young teenagers the box filled with rodents, before emptying it on the floor creating chaos and panic among the customers. According to media reports, the pro-Palestine man also raised anti-Israel and anti-semitic slogans, “F**k Israel” along with chanting “Free f**king Palestine”.
At the end of the viral video, he can be heard giving calls to boycott McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Disney as they have allegedly supported Israel amidst ongoing war in the region.
A spokesperson for McDonald’s confirmed the incident and noted that ‘a number of mice’ were released inside the restaurant. The spokesperson added that they have sanitised the area through pest control.
Speaking to a British news outlet LBC, the spokesperson for McDonald’s said, “We are aware of an incident in our Birmingham Star City restaurant this evening where a number of mice were released by a member of the public. Following the removal of the mice, the restaurant has been fully sanitised and our pest control partners have been called out to conduct a full inspection.”
Earlier this month, fast-food chain McDonald’s outlets in Israel faced online protests and calls to boycott it after it announced that it would provide free meals to Israeli soldiers amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Media reports suggest that the pro-Palestinian man’s bizarre act of letting mice loose in Birmingham McDonald’s was linked to the chains’ alleged support for the Israeli military.
Later on 18th October, Pro-Palestinian protesters reportedly attacked a McDonald’s restaurant in Istanbul. They accused the franchise was providing food to Israeli soldiers preparing to invade Gaza and favouring the Israeli side in its retaliatory actions on Gaza.
Similarly, McDonald’s branches in Turkey, Lebanon, and Egypt faced vandalism. Large supporters of Gaza demonstrated outside McDonald’s restaurants across the Muslim world, from Cairo to Malaysia. Consequently, local franchisees of McDonald’s in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon distanced themselves from their branch in Israel. They asserted that they have no affiliation with the Israeli branch and it was their private decision. Some franchisees even donated to Gaza residents.