Police say the gunman used a revolver which was smuggled in a hollowed-out book by a female suspect, who remains at large.

Gang leader Sanjeewa Kumara Samararathne had been escorted to court to face proceedings when he was shot. Police say he was a suspect in multiple murder cases.

The shooting in the capital Colombo is among a series of killings by rivalling gangs, which has persisted as authorities vow to crack down on gang violence in the country.

The gang leader, popularly known as Ganemulle Sanjeewa, had been in custody since he was arrested in September 2023.

Police said he had been escorted to the courthouse on Wednesday by a dozen police officers. He was taken to hospital after he was shot but was pronounced dead on arrival.

The gunman managed to flee the scene but was later captured by police. He has been identified differently by authorities and local media, but police say that he used several names.

Police have identified the female suspect as 25-year-old Pinpura Dewage Ishara Sewwandi.

Authorities have put out a notice promising a reward for anyone providing information on the woman. Police say they have also arrested a policeman and van driver suspected of helping the two suspects in the shooting.

Lawmakers discussed reining in gang violence in parliament on Wednesday, with an opposition MP calling it a “major security issue”.

Health and mass media minister Nalinda Jayatissa, who in December had pledged to crack down on such criminal activity, said on Wednesday that the government would “take the actions of organised underworld gangs seriously.”

The incident has also raised questions about security in the courthouse, with authorities currently reviewing security measures.

New security protocols are being implemented in the wake of the shooting, including deploying armed guards when certain people are brought to court. Armed security personnel are not typically allowed in court, justice minister Harshana Nanayakkara said on Thursday.

At least nine people have died this year in a spateof shootings blamed on gang rivalry, according to AFP citing police data.

While no injuries were reported among passengers, six elephants died from the accident in Habarana, east of the capital Colombo.

Two injured elephants were being treated, police said, noting that it was the worst such wildlife accident the country had seen, AFP reported.

It is not uncommon for trains to run into herds of elephants in Sri Lanka, where casualties on both sides of human-elephant encounters are among the highest in the world.

Last year, more than 170 people and nearly 500 elephants were killed in human-elephant encounters overall – and around 20 elephants are killed by trains annually, according to local media.

Elephants, whose natural habitats are affected by deforestation and shrinking resources, have increasingly strayed into places of human activity.

Some have urged train drivers to slow down and sound the train horns to warn animals ahead on railway tracks.

In 2018, a pregnant elephant and its two calves similarly died in Habarana after being struck by a train. The three had been part of a larger herd crossing the train tracks at dawn.

Last October, another train ran into a herd in Minneriya, about 25km (15 miles) away from Habarana, killing two elephants and injuring one.

There are an estimated 7,000 wild elephants in Sri Lanka, where the animals, revered by its Buddhist majority, are protected by law. Killing an elephant is a crime punishable by imprisonment or a fine.

In the water, a group of local surfers were engaged in a dispute with Israeli tourists that kicked off over surf etiquette – or rather, from the perspective of the Sri Lankans, a lack of it.

Jeevan Hall, , an internationally acclaimed Sri Lankan surfer, was in the lineup of the surf when he encountered an Israeli tourist repeatedly taking waves without leaving any for others. Frustrated, Hall approached the tourist – an off-duty soldier of the Israeli army – and asked him to respect the surfing code of conduct and share the waves.

What started as an innocuous request quickly escalated into a tiff. Two of the soldier’s friends, also Israeli soldiers on a break, joined in. The three started paddling around him in the water, hurling insults in Hebrew.

Other surfers rushed to support Hall, only to be met with accusations from the Israelis: “You only have issues with us because of the war.”

Hall knew the soldiers were referring to Israel’s war on Gaza. He quickly clarified that his frustration had nothing to do with politics but with the soldier’s blatant disregard for surf manners.

“This is a very common thing that happens in Arugam Bay,” Hall later told Al Jazeera.

But there is a reason why the Israeli soldiers referred to the war that is on a tenuous pause for the moment because of a ceasefire. In Sri Lanka, as in many other parts of the world, they are no longer as welcome as before.

Trouble in paradise

For decades, Sri Lanka has been a haven for international tourists seeking its pristine beaches, world-class surf, and a slice of tropical paradise – all at a relatively lesser cost than similar sites in other parts of the world.

Among the visitors, young Israeli tourists have carved out a notable presence, particularly the reservists – Israelis who have come out of the country’s compulsory military service.

In 2022, 9,000 Israeli nationals entered Sri Lanka, with the figure increasing by 1,000 the next year, according to local authorities.

In 2024, however, as Israel’s military campaign in Gaza turned into a genocide, the number of Israeli visitors to Sri Lanka doubled with an estimated 20,000 entering the South Asian island.

Shiro Jeyawadne, a Sri Lankan who moves between the east and south surf season each year, working in restaurants and bars along the coast, said she believes Israelis are vacationing in greater numbers in Sri Lanka as a way to “get over” the war they participated in.

They don’t seem to care that there is tension between the wider community with them being here, their minds are elsewhere,” she told Al Jazeera.

In the island’s tourist towns such as Arugam Bay, the sight of business signs in Hebrew is normal, highlighting the enclaves of Israeli reservists who often stay for months on end. At least 100 Israelis have settled in the town, which has a total population of fewer than 4,000.

“I never need to know if my friends will be there. When I come to Sri Lanka, I know there will be other Israelis I can spend my trip with,” Tel Aviv-based T Oko told Al Jazeera.

For years, the relations between the local residents and Israeli visitors had been cordial as the influx contributed to a tourism-dependent Sri Lankan economy.

But cracks in this dynamic are now visible.

Several coastal tourist destinations – including Indonesia in 2018 and the Maldives in 2024 – banned Israeli passport holders from entering their countries. In December, Australia denied the entry of two Israeli soldiers who had served in Gaza.

In Sri Lanka, some believe that following suit would lead to an influx of “more ethically-minded” tourists who are otherwise hesitant to visit due to the dominance of Israeli reservists on the island’s beaches.

“The vibe would be different, the coastline culture would be more connected,” Jack Campbell, a long-term resident originally from Australia, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s a snowball effect because they exist with a group mentality. I don’t feel safe for my family here,” he said, referring specifically to Israeli soldiers who have been flagged as suspected war criminals.

‘War criminals’ on holiday

Gaza war crimes allegations and illegal businesses run by Israelis have prompted widespread anger and resentment among local communities in Sri Lanka. While a fragile ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since January, fears that the war is far from over are pervasive, worsened by provocative statements from leaders in Israel and its main global supporter, the United States.

It is illegal to work on a tourist visa in Sri Lanka. Yet, from hospitality and hotels to nightlife and wellness studios, unlicensed Israeli businesses have mushroomed across the island. Currently, there are more than 50 Israeli tourist ventures on the island – many of them owned by previous or current reservists with the help of corrupt officials, and often sidelining local businesses.

“We are cognisant that Sri Lankan workers in tourist hotspots need the income and perceive they are gaining income from Israeli businesses and tourists,” Serena Burgess, a Colombo-based activist involved in the island’s pro-Palestine movements, told Al Jazeera.

“From what we can gather, quite a lot of these businesses are sending profits to Israel through credit card transactions,” she said.

Sri Lankan activists organise campaigns to inform people of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the extent of Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territory.

Activists also work towards the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Sri Lanka, distributing lists of Israel-linked corporations and organisations to people. Most of these activists requested anonymity due to security concerns.

Over the past six months, at least three incidents of physical violence by Israeli nationals have been reported by the locals, with police investigating them. In each incident, Israeli tourists physically attacked locals on the south coast who were known to be vocally pro-Palestinian. Last December in Ahangama, a popular destination for young travellers, Israeli tourists approached a local family known for their work in Sri Lanka’s anti-Zionist movement, physically attacking and vandalising their property.

In December, the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), a Palestinian advocacy group, found that Israeli soldier Gal Ferenbook was holidaying in Colombo. The Belgium-based foundation is named after the six-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli soldiers along with her family inside a car in Gaza. Since its formation last summer, HRF has pulled together lawyers and activists from around the world to prepare cases against Israeli soldiers based on social media posts by the soldiers themselves, boasting of what they did in the war.

The HRF issued a statement, urging the Sri Lankan government to arrest Ferenbook, who had posted a video on social media in which he was seen holding the body of a Palestinian over his tank, like a trophy. As soon as the request was raised, the Israeli soldier fled Sri Lanka in December 2024, reportedly with the help of local Israeli officials.

“It is absolutely not normal for these guys who just shot a kid in the head, who raped and murdered, to get on a plane and come here to chill on the beach,” Egyptian activist Zein Rahma told Al Jazeera last month while holidaying in southern Sri Lanka, where she realised she was sharing the beach with Israeli soldiers who had returned from Gaza.

Rahma said she made it her mission to report the presence of Israeli soldiers in Sri Lanka’s tourist towns. “This is no longer a local issue, it is an international one,” she said.

Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) 2002 Rome Statute which prosecutes individuals for war crimes. However, the island nation signed the Geneva Convention in 1949, which states that war crimes are a violation of humanitarian law.

“The international law and human rights standards are very clear. If there is evidence of international crimes, that needs to be investigated and individuals held accountable,” Sri Lankan human rights lawyer Bhavani Fonseka told Al Jazeera.

“It’s a question to pose to the new NPP government,” she said, referring to the governing National People’s Power alliance, headed by Marxist-leaning President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, which stormed to power in September last year.

Sri Lankan authorities have faced the question of whose side they are on multiple times since the war on Gaza began in 2023. While Sri Lanka, much like the international community, has voted against the war at the United Nations, the island is also struggling to come out of a historic economic crisis that saw the toppling of a government in 2021 and a subsequent economic bailout from lenders like the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The record financial meltdown also caused an unemployment crisis in Sri Lanka. Today, 4.7 percent of Sri Lankans are unemployed. According to the island’s labour force statistics, in September 2024, the rate was 4.1 percent, prompting the government to send nearly 20,000 citizens to work in Israel’s farming and construction sectors to make up for the shortage of Palestinian workers due to the war in Gaza. Many of these Sri Lankan workers remain in Israel today.

Meanwhile, activists like Burgess are trying to educate the locals on why seeking employment in Israel is “particularly unethical”. But with very limited economic resources locally, it is unclear whether those calls will actually stem the flow of Sri Lankan workers headed to Israel.

Protection for whom?

In October last year, the US, the United Kingdom, Australian and Russian embassies in Sri Lanka issued now withdrawn advisories, asking their citizens to avoid travelling to Arugam Bay, a Muslim-majority town, over threats to Israeli soldiers living or holidaying there.

The alleged threat led to the deployment of Sri Lankan soldiers, helicopters and tanks on the beach, ending the east coast’s surf season abruptly and leaving the locals confounded. Jeyawadane, a local, claims there were fewer than 10 Israelis in Arugam Bay when the advisory by the Western nations was issued and there was no obvious physical threat to anyone. As the season had begun on the southern coast, many Israeli tourists had instead made their way down there.

But the Sri Lankan government escalated its response to the perceived threat, dispersing security personnel throughout the country’s tourist towns and arresting three people, including a Sri Lankan national living and working in Iraq. Vijitha Herath, minister of public security and foreign affairs, said the suspects had been taken into custody.

“The bay practically emptied overnight,” Hall told Al Jazeera. His family has run an iconic hotel in Arugam Bay for over a decade.

Along with almost all of the other hotels in Arugam Bay, the hotel received cancellations for weeks from tourists visiting from around the world, even after the advisory was withdrawn. Where once Arugam Bay was a hotspot for Israeli tourists, a synagogue and Shabbat centre operating in its back streets five years ago, now the streets were empty.

A month later, in November, Sri Lankan forces secured Chabad House, a Jewish centre constructed by Israeli nationals in Colombo, while orders were given to enhance security at hotels frequented by Israeli nationals.

The deployment of soldiers for the protection of Chabad House angered many Sri Lankans, who claimed it was illegally constructed, without a mandatory government permit.

When Member of Parliament Mujibur Rahman questioned Prime Minister Harani Amarasuriya on it in parliament in December 2024, Amarasuriya acknowledged that the Chabad House and other such centres, including in Arugam Bay, were operating without permission. According to Rahman, the construction began with the permission of the previous, now-ousted government.

Now, even with a new government in place, these admittedly illegal buildings are being protected by Sri Lankan defence forces, complained Rahman. As of February 2025, police were still seen guarding the Colombo Chabad House’s entrance. “We are struggling to understand who is behind this,” he told Al Jazeera.

He also alleged that the government was aware of the presence of potential Israeli war criminals in Sri Lanka. “The problem is, there are no systems for prior screening [of soldiers],” he said.

Many Sri Lankans, including Jeyawadane, say the country’s decades-old strategic ties with Israel may have prompted the security of the Jewish centres. “It makes sense that our defence force is still in cahoots with theirs – Israel did sell us weapons during our war,” Jeyawadane explained to Al Jazeera.

During Sri Lanka’s 30-year-long civil war with Tamil rebels fighting for a separate homeland for the ethnic minority community, Israel provided weapons and training to the Sri Lankan military. The civil war ended in 2009. But that relationship, critics say, was further nurtured by the powerful Rajapaksa family that dominated the island’s politics between 2005 and 2021, after which they were overthrown following a popular movement. Ironically, the Rajapaksa brothers, especially former presidents – Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, have themselves faced accusations of committing and overseeing war crimes during the civil war.

The NPP was voted to power last year by Sri Lankans fed up with years of corruption and they demanded accountability and punishment for those they believed were guilty. Many of those people are now enraged by suspected Israeli war criminals holidaying in their country.

“No more excuses. No more silence. It’s time we started to take back control,” said Burgess.

From 1 February, imports of buses, trucks and utility vehicles will be allowed to resume, while restrictions on other vehicles are expected to be gradually lifted.

Many Sri Lankans are waiting for authorities to also drop an import ban on private cars, sport utility vehicles and three-wheeled trishaws – which are commonly used as taxis.

But with prices of vehicles forced up by a scarcity of new ones to buy, a weak currency and high taxes, some are asking who will be able to afford a new car.

In 2022, Sri Lanka faced a severe foreign currency shortage, which meant it was unable to meet its obligations to creditors for the first time in its history.

The island nation of 22 million people was thrown into turmoil as it faced crippling shortages of fuel, food and medicines.

Massive anti-government protests toppled then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa just months later.

Colombo negotiated a $2.9bn (£2.3bn) bailout from the International Monetary Fund, while Rajapaksa’s successor introduced austerity measures including hiking taxes and ending energy subsidies.

The country’s finances have since improved and the economy is gradually returning from the brink.

The announcement to lift the import ban on vehicles has triggered a buzz among Sri Lankans who have been waiting for years to buy a new car or a van.

Murtaza Jafeerjee, chair of Advocata, an economic think tank based in Colombo, told the BBC he thought the move was long overdue.

“The vehicle imports will not only increase the government’s revenue but will also trigger other economic activities like car financing, dealer revenue, car servicing and other related activities, creating jobs,” he said.

But Nalinda Jayatissa, the country’s information minister told a media briefing on Tuesday that the country was “moving very cautiously because we don’t want a surge of imports that will deplete our foreign reserves”.

The country, which doesn’t have any major factories producing cars and trucks, imports almost all its vehicles, many of them from countries like Japan and India. Now there’s a also lot of interest in Chinese cars, particularly electric vehicles.

Prices of used cars in Sri Lanka have soared, with some models now costing two or three times as much as they did before the ban.

The restrictions have been particularly difficult for people like Gayan Indika, who provides vehicles for weddings and is a part-time cab driver.

“I want to buy a new car so that I can do my work and resume my private cab rental. Without a car, without mobility, I am losing a lot of my revenue,” he said.

In a country with poor public transport, a car can be vital, Sasikumar, a software professional from the central city of Kandy explained.

“As we don’t have a good public transport system, a car is essential to travel to other parts of the country. Either the government should lift the ban on cars or improve the public transport.”

Sri Lanka imported about $1.4bn worth of vehicles in the year before the ban was imposed. This year the central bank says it’s planning to allocate up to a billion dollars for vehicle imports, but said the money will be released gradually.

Arosha Rodrigo, from the Vehicle Importers Association of Sri Lanka, and his family have been running a car dealership for more than four decades.

The firm was importing about 100 vehicles a month before the ban. Since the restrictions came into force they have not been unable to import a single vehicle.

He points out that even if the ban is relaxed further, to allow passenger cars and other vehicles to be imported, many people won’t be able to afford them because of increased taxes and Sri Lanka’s weak currency.

The government has sharply raised excise duties on imported vehicles, both new and second hand, to 200% and 300% depending on engine size.

On top of excise duty, there is also 18% Value Added Tax (VAT) for any vehicle brought from abroad.

The price of imported vehicles will also be impacted by the weakness of the Sri Lankan rupee against major world currencies like the US dollar.

Those soaring costs are putting off people like school teacher R Yasodha.

“We have been waiting to purchase a vehicle for a long time. But if we calculate the tax and the price, the cost of an average sized car has doubled from 2.5 million rupees ($8,450; £6,800) to five million rupees,” she told the BBC.

“It would cost a fortune for us.”

Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks the second time that Gnanasara, who has repeatedly been accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.

The sentence, handed down by the Colombo Magistrate’s Court, comes after a presidential pardon he received in 2019 for a six-year sentence related to intimidation and contempt of court.

Gnanasara was arrested in December for remarks he made during a 2016 media conference, where he made several derogatory remarks against Islam.

On Thursday, the court said that all citizens, regardless of religion, are entitled to the freedom of belief under the Constitution.

He was also given a fine of 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees ($5; £4). Failure to pay the fine would result in an additional month of imprisonment, the court’s ruling added.

Gnanasara has filed an appeal against the sentence. The court rejected a request from his lawyers to free him on bail until a final judgment was made on the appeal.

He was a trusted ally of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad following mass protests over the island nation’s economic crisis in 2022.

During Rajapaksa’s presidency, Gnanasara, who also leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was appointed head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.

After Rajapaksa’s ouster, Gnanasara was jailed last year for a similar charge related to hate speech against the country’s Muslim minority but was granted bail while appealing his four-year sentence.

In 2018, he was sentenced to six years for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a political cartoonist who is widely believed to have been disappeared. However, he only served nine months of that sentence because he received a pardon by Maithripala Sirisena who was the country’s president at the time.

The 102 people, including 25 children, were taken to Sri Lanka’s eastern port of Trincomalee, a navy spokesman said on Friday.

Medical checks have to be done before they are allowed to disembark,” the spokesman said.

The Muslim-majority ethnic Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar and thousands risk their lives each year on long sea journeys, the majority heading southeast to Malaysia or Indonesia.

But fisherman spotted the drifting trawler off Sri Lanka’s northern coast at Mullivaikkal at dawn on Thursday.

The navy spokesman said on Friday that language difficulties had made it hard to understand where the refugees had been headed, suggesting that “recent cyclonic weather” may have pushed them off course.

While unusual, it is not the first boat to head to Sri Lanka, which is about 1,750km (1,100 miles) across open seas southwest of Myanmar.

In October, six people died as nearly 100 Rohingya landed by boat in Indonesia’s Aceh province in one of the latest waves of arrivals from Myanmar.

The Sri Lankan navy rescued more than 100 Rohingya refugees in distress on a boat off their shores in December 2022.

In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh during a crackdown by the military that is now the subject of a United Nations genocide court case.

Myanmar’s military seized power in a 2021 coup and a grinding civil war since then has forced millions to flee.The Rohingya have borne the brunt of the latest fighting because they have been forcibly drafted into the army despite not being recognised as citizens.