Seoul announced that recent reports claiming that as many as 600 North Koreans in China’s three northeast provinces have been sent back appear to be true.

Human rights groups said that the defectors, who were mostly women, could face imprisonment, sexual violence or even death once they return to the North.

Koo Byoung-sam, a spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, told the press that “The South Korean government regrets the situation and raised this matter with the Chinese side in a serious manner, emphasizing our position,” while former North Korean diplomat and current member of South Korea’s parliament, Tae Yong-ho, called on the foreign ministry to summon the Chinese ambassador to South Korea as a form of protest.

Meanwhile, the Chinese foreign ministry claimed that there were no “so-called defectors” in China and that the country would “continue to appropriately handle” issues relating to “economic migrants” according to humanitarian principles as well as domestic and international law.

The U.S. said that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

Analysts speculate that this agreement to refill Moscow’s munition stores was made when North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un traveled to Russia and met President Vladimir Putin.

In return, it is believed that Russian weapon technologies were exchanged to enhance North Korea’s military and nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s recent visit to Pyongyang is seen as setting the stage for an impending visit by Putin and exploring new opportunities for weapons trade, as well as a step-up in diplomatic relations between the two isolated countries.

South Korea’s military identified what it believed to be North Korean weapons from images and videos from the Hamas attacks, including rocket-propelled grenades and 122mm artillery shells that were marked in Korean letters “Bang-122,” which have been used in North Korean artillery attacks on the South.

Since Hamas’ attack on Israel, including the use of paragliders and drones, adopted tactics that were previously employed by North Korea, a senior member of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff told the press that “Hamas is believed to be directly or indirectly linked to North Korea in various areas, such as the weapons trade, tactical guidance and training,” and “There is a possibility that North Korea could use Hamas’ attack methods [in the event of] a surprise invasion of South Korea.”

According to Bruce Bennet, a Senior Fellow at RAND Corporation think tank, a military connection between North Korea and Hamas is very likely as “For many years, North Korea has sent its military personnel overseas to help train foreign military personnel in many countries, so it should be no surprise to find North Korean military trainers in Gaza supporting Hamas.”

Meanwhile, Pyongyang’s state media openly supported Hamas and called Israel’s response “ceaseless criminal actions.”

North Korea’s Ministry of External Economic Relations instructed central government-affiliated trade enterprises to establish an “emergency trade system” by the end of this year.

The system is aimed at setting up a “safety net” for foreign currency conversions and payments to each country engaged in trade with North Korea.

This order was issued along with instructions to expand food imports from China and Russia in order to compensate for its agricultural shortfall this year.

In short, this call to enable the North to reliably and conveniently carry out foreign currency-based transactions is fundamentally aimed at circumventing international sanctions and securing safe channels for foreign trade.

At present, trade officials at Pyongyang Taehung Fur Trading Company and Yonghung Trade Company have ordered their trade representatives overseas to prepare to convince citizens in China and other countries to set up bank accounts for North Korean companies under their own names.