In a statement on Friday, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said “Israel’s horrific crime of killing the bud-like children, yet to be bloomed, is a severe challenge to the future of humankind and a crime against humanity.””It is no exaggeration to say that the whole Gaza Strip has turned into a huge human slaughterhouse and a place of massacring children,” the ministry continued. “Soon after the end of the bombardment, [Israel Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and the Israeli authorities are trying to conceal their crime of killing even the children.”

a man wearing a suit and tie: North Korea's               It added that international news outlets are “strongly condemning Israel for continuing to massacre children, pointing at Israel as a culprit of expulsion of Palestinians, illegal settlement expansion and sowing the seeds of hatred by suppressing their peaceful praying ceremony.”

The hermit kingdom’s remarks came on June 4, which the United Nations designated as the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression, to mark Israel’s “acts of aggression” against a “great number of innocent Palestinian and Lebanese children victims” in August 1982.

The latest clash between Israel and Hamas in Gaza demolished thousands of businesses and houses, displacing over 100,000 people in the territory. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said about 240 Palestinians were killed in 11 days of conflict. Officials reported at least 12 people dead in Israel.

A ceasefire was brokered after a month of escalating tensions, with both Hamas and Israel claiming victory. Israelis and Palestinians have engaged in sporadic peace talks over the past 25 years, but no resolution has been reached yet.

North Korea has long recognized Palestinians’ sovereignty over all territories held by Israel, excluding the Golan Heights. Pyongyang considers Israel as an “imperialist satellite” that runs counter to its own regime’s anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist ideology. For decades, the family regime of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has sided with Palestinian militant groups including Hamas.

In the 1990s, former Supreme Leader Kim Jong Il assisted former Palestinian ambassador to North Korea Mustafa Safarini with fertility treatment after developing a close relationship with the official, according to NK News.

While their ideologies align, Pyongyang’s solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement has also earned the increasingly hermit kingdom a diplomatic link to the Arab region.

SOURCE: NEWSWEEK