Hamas fighters might have used North Korean weapons while attacking Israel on October 7, according to a militant video and weapons seized by Israel. Pyongyang has dismissed allegations that it has sold arms to the militant group.
The newly surface video indicates that Hamas used the North Korean F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched weapon which fires a single warhead, according to the Associated Press. The launcher, which is easy to reload and typically used against armored vehicles, resembles the Soviet-era RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
The evidence has reportedly raised concerns about North Korea's alleged illicit arms shipments which help the sanction-hit nation to fund its arms programmes.
The use of F-7 launchers has been reported in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza, AP quoted N.R. Jenzen-Jones, who works as the director of the consultancy Armament Research Services, as saying. The weapons expert added that arms from Pyongyang, which was backed the Palestinian militant groups, have previously been documented among interdicted supplies.
Photos of Hamas training published by the group show fighters using rocket-propelled grenade launchers. A distinctive red stripe across its warhead and other design elements match the F-7, Matt Schroeder, a senior researcher with Small Arms Survey who wrote a guide to Pyongyang's light weapons, told AP.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a briefing with journalists, identified the F-7 as one of the North Korean weapons that Hamas used in the October 7 attack.
Pyongyang, in a statement on its state-run KCNA news agency, denied the allegations and said those are rumours spread by the US.