COLOMBO: President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Sunday reiterated Sri Lanka’s unwavering support for a separate Palestinian state to be established “within five years."

The president also said that despite the country’s current bankrupt economy, generous public contributions collected a million dollars in response to his government’s Gaza Children’s Fund that was donated.

Wickremesinghe made these remarks during participation at a special service held at a Grand Jummah Mosque at the Muslim-dominated Kattankudy in the eastern province for the affected people of Gaza.

Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7 last year, killed around 1,200 people and took some 250 others as hostages. Since then, Israel has regularly bombarded the Gaza Strip killing over 37,000 Palestinians.

“Sri Lanka’s stance on the Gaza clashes would never change, action must be taken to set up an independent Palestine state within five years and murdering of civilians must stop,” he said.

“People should not be made to pay for the problems with Hamas. We all should assist in finding a solution to the Palestine problem – the state of Palestine must be set up before five years. It will not be productive to waste time talking about it, as we have done now for 40-50 years. Israel’s security concerns must be addressed separately,” Wickremesinghe added.

The Sri Lankan government decided to set up the Gaza Children’s Fund despite the country’s current bankruptcy (status) of the economy. “We did donate a million dollars, we asked for generous public contributions and we received good response,” Wickremesinghe said as he accepted a donation cheque from the trustees of the mosque in solidarity with the cause of children of Gaza.