Alshaya Group, which owns the rights to the Starbucks brand in the Middle East, did not say whether the reason for the layoffs was the regional boycott campaign that has targeted products from countries that consumers believe support Israel since October.

In an emailed statement to AFP, a spokesperson for Alshaya Group attributed the decision to “ongoing difficult business conditions over the past six months.”

He added, "We made an unfortunate and very difficult decision to reduce the number of colleagues in Starbucks cafes in the Middle East and North Africa," without clarifying the number of employees involved in the layoffs.

The boycott movement, launched by pro-Palestinian activists, targets major Western brands such as Starbucks and McDonald's, to protest their supposed support for Israel since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Those who license the use of these brands in the region rejected these accusations. McDonald's, for example, pledged to provide funds for relief efforts in Gaza and denied any relationship with the brand's branches in Israel.

Starbucks also tried to distance itself from the accusations, and its stores in Doha distributed statements containing details to counter “misinformation.”

The war broke out following an unprecedented attack carried out by members of the Palestinian Hamas movement on October 7 on southern Israel, which led to the killing of 1,160 people, most of them civilians.

The Israeli retaliatory attack on the Gaza Strip led to the deaths of more than 30,700 people within five months, most of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-run Strip, and also caused a widespread humanitarian crisis.