GAZA COLA PROJECT AIMS TO REBUILD THE HOSPITAL DESTROYED BY ISRAELI BOMBING

Thu 09 January 2025:

The UN claims that Israel’s bombing of hospitals is putting Gaza’s healthcare system in danger of “total collapse.” One Palestinian activist hopes to use a soft drink to help piece back a little portion of it, but it is still impossible to predict how much time and money it will take to restore.

Osama Qashoo, the creator of Gaza Cola, hopes to use profits from his Coca-Cola alternative, recently launched in London, to rebuild al Karama hospital, which used to stand in northern Gaza. “It’s been reduced to rubble for no just reason, like all of these hospitals in Gaza,” according to the 43-year-old film-maker, human rights advocate and, now, fizzy-drink maker.

Originally from Nablus in the West Bank, Qashoo has been living in the UK since he was forced to flee Palestine more than 18 years ago – he was shot, imprisoned and tortured by occupation forces.

Qashoo has chosen that hospital because, relatively speaking, “it’s small, it’s quite manageable, it doesn’t cost a lot of money”. He could not put a figure on how much that would mean, or when it might happen, but, he said, “we are allowed to have an imagination … we have to dream, otherwise we can’t live”.

Ironically not himself a fan of fizzy drinks, Qashoo identifies Gaza Cola as a vehicle for a message. It is, he said, “a statement to all these corporate companies who are investing in armed trade. To ask them the question of dignity. Do you see what your money’s doing? Because it is doing damage. It is destroying homes and our environment … they need to wake up and they need to understand that their money, their greed, is causing our genocide”.

❝Boycott, which is a tool that defeated the apartheid in South Africa, we have to use it again❞

Osama Qashoo, creator of Gaza Cola, advocates boycotts and direct action to oppose Israel’s occupation and genocide in Gaza https://t.co/bYw00t4g9e pic.twitter.com/boHxiyLvoN

— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) December 13, 2024

Qashoo is an advocate of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Coca-Cola, which BDS calls to boycott, reportedly operates facilities in occupied East Jerusalem. Qashoo views the company as “representative of all the big corporations who actually don’t care about the human being”.

Boycotts of Coke and Pepsi in countries across the Middle East have already proved to be good news for local soft-drink brands, and Qashoo hopes people will get into the habit of drinking Gaza Cola instead of the big brands. “If you want to drink cola and you like it, what about this one? It’s an alternative.”

It had sold more than 500,000 by the end of last year – online, a 24-pack costs £30 and a six pack costs £12 – and is being bought wholesale and shipped all over the UK, as well as farther afield, including to Spain, Australia, South Africa and Kuwait.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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