The North Korean Foreign Ministry published a raging statement on Tuesday condemning Israel for its operations to eliminate the jihadist terrorist organization Hezbollah, declaring Israel and America “cancer-like entities” and accusing Israel of “large-scale massacres.”
The communist North Korean government has long maintained an alliance with Iran, the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism and a critical financial backer for the terrorist groups that Israel is currently combatting. A top Iranian terrorist proxy, Hamas, began the current war in the Middle East with an invasion of Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, in which it massacred 1,200 Israelis, abducted over 200, and engaged in wanton acts of infanticide, gang rape, and other atrocities. Israeli authorities believe about 100 October 7 hostages remain in captivity at press time.
Another Iranian proxy, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, declared war on Israel in solidarity with Hamas and has maintained a campaign of terrorism against residents of northern Israel that has displaced an estimated 60,500 people so far.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in the past two weeks, conducting airstrikes on September 27 that eliminated the longtime head of the organization, Hassan Nasrallah. The North Korean Foreign Ministry screed condemning Israel was in response to the killing of Nasrallah and a significant percentage of the Hezbollah leadership structure and the subsequent announcement of a limited ground effort to eradicate what is left of the genocidal terrorist organization.
“Israel is resorting to massacre, terrorism and assassination, talking about the ‘right to self-defence’ and ‘security,'” the communist regime railed in a statement published by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), its flagship state propaganda outlet. “Its brutality and shamelessness are arousing great hatred and resentment of the international community.”
“It is a hideous war crime and unethical crime that Israel killed many civilians by committing indiscriminate military attack and terrorist acts against Lebanon,” the North Korean government declared, referring to targeted attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.
The commentary went on to condemn both the United States and Israel, describing them jointly as “cancer-like entities of regional peace and stability and the common enemy of the Arab people.”
The rant notably omitted mention of Hezbollah and its decades of deadly terrorist attacks on Israeli and American targets.
North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song, similarly used his address to the General Assembly on Saturday, the day Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah’s death, to condemn Israel for defending itself against Iran-backed Islamist terrorism.
“Since October last year, the indiscriminate massacre by Israeli authorities has claimed more than 40 thousand Palestinian civilian lives in Gaza Strip including many children and women, and thus exposed a nation to complete extinction,” Kim claimed, referring to numbers distributed by Hamas. Kim did not specify what happened in October that would have caused Israel to launch a self-defense military endeavor in Gaza, which Hamas controls.
Kim also described Israel’s self-defense efforts as “the most appalling humanitarian crisis since World War II,”a bold claim to make given that North Korea itself has been the cause of events in the running for the title. In the second half of the 1990s, for example, North Korea’s communist regime prompted a devastating famine known as the “arduous march” through administrative incompetence and the purging of key agricultural and engineering experts. The estimates of how many people starved to death during the “arduous march” vary, but some suggest the toll to be as high as over 3 million people.
Kim Song went on to tell the U.N. it was “shameful and deplorable” that the global body had not stopped Israel from defending itself.
Absent from both Kim’s speech and the Foreign Ministry statement is the decades of evidence that North Korea has maintained close ties to some of Israel’s most dedicated terrorist enemies, including Hamas and Hezbollah. In 2009, for example, several planes of North Korean origin were intercepted traveling west and carrying weapons to unknown parties. One such plane, intercepted in Thailand, was reportedly traveling to Iran carrying a shipment of weapons for Hezbollah. Another plane intercepted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was similarly carrying a large cache of weapons officials believed were sold to Hezbollah, Hamas, or Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
North Korea appeared to get caught selling weapons to Iran-backed jihadis again in 2014, when the British Daily Telegraph reported that Western intelligence agents had discovered evidence that Hamas made a down payment to North Korea for missiles and communications equipment. That same week, an American court found North Korea guilty of selling weapons to Hezbollah.
After October 7, the Israeli government notified the government of South Korea that some captured Hamas terrorists appeared to be carrying North Korean weapons.
“In Gaza, as it is the one which attacks us, they use North Korean weapons,” Israeli Ambassador to Seoul Akiva Tor said in October. “It could be that these North Korean weapons have been in Iran for quite a long time.”
An unnamed official with South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told the news agency UPI that month that Hamas appeared to have used rocket launchers and artillery shells from North Korea.
“Hamas is believed to be directly or indirectly linked to North Korea in various areas, such as the weapons trade, tactical guidance, and training,” the official said. “There is a possibility that North Korea could use Hamas’ attack methods for a surprise invasion of South Korea.”