During the war in Gaza, the IDF recovered large quantities of weapons from the Gaza Strip that apparently were produced in North Korea, as reported by the South Korean National Intelligence Service.Since these weapons were seized, new information has been published revealing the current and historical relationship between North Korea and Hamas, as well as other terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Syria, and the Houthis, according to a study by the Stimson Research Institute.
On October 16, Israeli Ambassador to South Korea Akiva Tor expressed concern that Hamas had used North Korean weapons against Israel and vowed to destroy North Korean weapons stocks in the Gaza Strip.
On October 17, a senior official from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff claimed that “Hamas is believed to be directly or indirectly linked to North Korea militarily in various areas, such as the weapons trade, tactical guidance, and training.”
North Korea’s state Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) called the allegations that it arms Hamas “a groundless and false rumor.” It accused the US of creating the conspiracy to deflect from its own complicity in the Gaza war.
This statement was undermined by the North Korean F-7 rocket-propelled grenades from Hamas’s arsenal that were captured by Israeli forces. In addition, Israeli forces found North Korean Bang-122 artillery shells on the Israel-Gaza border, and a Hamas-aligned terrorist group in Gaza possesses North Korean-made 122-mm multiple rocket launchers.
North Korea's history of partnership with Iran and Syria
North Korea has a long history of partnership with Iran and Syria, detailed in the Stimson report, and as a result, its military technology has reached Iran’s terrorist proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
Since the start of the war, North Korean state media has repeatedly illustrated violence perpetrated by Israel and has whitewashed Hamas. North Korea’s party daily newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, stated that the international community believed “Israel’s constant criminal acts against the Palestinian people” caused the war. The state media has not shown the carnage of the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians.
North Korea historically has described Israel as an “imperialist satellite state” and recognizes Palestinian sovereignty over the entirety of Israeli territory, except the Golan Heights.
During the 2008-2009 and 2014 Gaza wars, North Korea said Israel was committing crimes against humanity. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman, Yasser Arafat, received North Korean weapons from Kim Il Sung.
North Korean intelligence officers provided training to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) commander George Habash and facilitated the PFLP-Japanese Red Army 1972 terror attack at the Lod Airport in Israel, the report revealed.
Between the end of the Cold War and 2007, these ties weakened. However, they strengthened after the 2014 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, when Hamas turned to North Korea for military assistance. Hamas reportedly gave North Korea a six-figure payment for rockets and military-use communications equipment. Hamas conducted this transaction through a third-party company in Lebanon.
At the time, North Korea said allegations that it was performing such activities were “utterly useless sophism and sheer fiction let loose by the US.”
Once again, North Korean Bulsae-2 anti-tank guided missiles were found in the inventory of the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, a Gaza-based terrorist group and one-time ally of Hamas.
In May 2021, a small quantity of F-7 rockets were found with the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the same Brigade that was part of the attacks on October 7.
This transfer of weaponry from North Korea to Hamas is largely performed through third parties, the Stimson report stated, possibly from North Korea to Iran to Sudan and then to Egypt, where arms are trafficked to Hamas through Hamas’s tunnel network.
In 2009, a North Korean plane smuggling 35 tonnes of rocket launchers, grenades, and missiles was seized in Thailand. US and UN investigators said it is part of a global North Korean illegal arms smuggling network used to finance its nuclear weapons program.
North Korea ties with Hezbollah and the Houthis
In addition to Hamas, North Korea has a history of ties with Hezbollah and the Houthis. In the 1980s, Hezbollah terrorists arrived in North Korea for military training. After 2000, North Korean instructors came to Lebanon to train Hezbollah how to build underground bunkers to store arms, food, and medical facilities. Hezbollah’s tunnel network that stretches to the Israel-Lebanon border was built with North Korean guidance.
North Korea also allegedly transferred improvised Katyusha and Grad rockets to Hezbollah, also transferred through third parties in Syria and Lebanon from Iran. North Korea has aided Iran’s production of several types of rockets, which were then transferred to Hezbollah.
In July 2015, South Korean intelligence officials revealed that the Houthis had fired 20 North Korean-made Scud missiles at Saudi Arabia. The Houthis allegedly captured these scud missiles on the battlefield, as these had been purchased originally by the Yemen Armed Forces from North Korea in 2002.
A year later, Houthi's leadership invited North Korean officials to meet in Damascus, Syria, to discuss technology transfers. These arms transfers have not been officially confirmed.