AHMEDABAD, India — A pro-Palestinian protester in India broke through security cordons to invade the pitch at the Cricket World Cup final on Sunday, stopping play briefly while he hugged superstar batsman Virat Kohli.

Wearing a face mask in the colors of the Palestinian flag and a T-shirt with the slogan “Stop Bombing Palestine,” the young protester ran onto the pitch in the 132,000-seat mega-stadium in India’s western city of Ahmedabad.

On the back of the T-shirt was written “Free Palestine.”

He was escorted off the pitch by security officers, and play swiftly resumed.

Unbeaten hosts India have won 10 games in a row at the tournament as they seek a third World Cup title and face Australia in the final.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was expected to attend the match along with Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

Israel has vowed to destroy the Palestinian terror group Hamas and remove it from power in the Gaza Strip in response to its murderous October 7 rampage, in which some 3,000 terrorists invaded Israel through the border and killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians. About 240 people were abducted and taken hostage into the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s air and ground campaign has since killed 12,300 people, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry’s unverified reports. The figures don’t discriminate between terror group fighters and civilians, and some of those people were killed by hundreds of misfired rockets aimed by terror groups at Israel that fell short inside Gaza. Hamas and other terror groups have fired thousands of rockets at Israel since the war began.

India, which has a long-standing call for an independent Palestinian state, has condemned Hamas and airlifted aid to Egypt for Palestinian civilians from the besieged Gaza Strip.