South Korea's spy agency said Monday that Hamas is using weapons made in North Korea to fight Israel in Gaza, according to a report in the South Korean outlet Yonhap.
It has been suspected in the past that Hamas used North Korean weapons since the war broke out three months ago, with North Korea’s first public denial of the allegations coming less than a week after the October 7 attack on Israel. The totalitarian state denies any involvement in attacks on Israelis.
The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed a report on Voice of America, the US’s state-owned international broadcaster, in which a photo of an F-7 grenade launcher allegedly used by Hamas bore Korean writing on it. The NIS said its “assessment is the same as the VOA report.”
NIS said it is “collecting and accumulating” further evidence of North Korea’s supply of arms to Hamas, but that “it is currently difficult to provide such evidence due to the need to protect information sources and in consideration of diplomatic ties,” according to Yonhap. NIS had previously reported to the South Korean parliament that Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean dictator, had ordered officials to strategize assisting the Palestinian cause.
The confirmation by South Korea comes just days after it was revealed that North Korea is also supplying weapons to Russia that have recently been used in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Confirmation comes after IDF reveals Chinese weapons in Gaza
The report of North Korean arms supplies to Gaza comes just days after the IDF revealed stockpiles of sophisticated Chinese-made weaponry, including assault rifles, grenade launchers, M16 cartridges, and communications equipment that Israeli soldiers have discovered in Gaza throughout the war thus far. China and North Korea have a mutual defense pact, the only one either has with any country in the world.
“This is top-grade weaponry and communications technology, stuff that Hamas didn’t have before,” an Israeli intelligence source told the British newspaper The Telegraph at the time, “with very sophisticated explosives which have never been found before and especially on such a large scale.”
Although the arms were made in China, it is not known whether the Chinese government was involved in the transfer or sale of the weapons. A third-party state actor to whom China sold the weapons, such as Iran, may have passed them on to Hamas, or an illegal weapons dealer may have sold them to the group directly.
In the last two decades, Israel-China relations have improved, and the country is deeply involved in the ongoing construction of Tel Aviv’s metro system. The war with Hamas has complicated relations, however, beginning as early as October 8, when Beijing released a statement calling for a ceasefire and two-state solution, without any condemnation of Hamas’s attack the day before. The Chinese Communist Party has also encouraged a rise in anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, which has exploded online since the outbreak of the war.
Hamas killed four Chinese nationals on October 7 and kidnapped Chinese-Israeli Noa Argamani, whom the terrorist group continues to hold captive in Gaza. Her mother and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have asked the Chinese government and its leader, Xi Jinping, to intervene for her release.