From K-Culture to K-Bangsan: A Litany of S. Korea’s Hard and Soft Cooperation in the Genocide of Palestinians / SM Downe

Fireworks Popped on the Han as Explosions Rained Down on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria

On October 5, 2024, fireworks burst over the Han River as bombs rained down on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. Hanwha Group, the organizer of the annual Seoul International Fireworks Festival that has taken place at Yeouido Hangang Park since 2000, is complicit in the bombings of Palestinian civilians. Though the ongoing genocide in the West Bank might appear to have little to do with South Korea, in 2021, Hanwha Systems, a subsidiary of Hanwha Corporation and an affiliate of Hanwha Group, signed an MOU with Israeli defense companies ELTA Systems and Elbit Systems promoting “technology cooperation” and “new export opportunities” between South Korea and Israel. ELTA, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries—directly owned by the illegitimate state of Israel—provides radar technologies and electronics to the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), conducts experiments featuring unmanned bulldozers to raze Palestinian villages, and exports hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment to countries like the Czech Republic and Italy, where ELTA drone exports recently came under fire for enabling Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign. Elbit Systems supplies a majority of ground equipment operated by the IOF and aids in maintaining the apartheid wall in the West Bank. One day before the Fireworks Festival and two days shy of a year since October 7, Hanwha Systems signed another MOU with Elbit Systems and military aircraft manufacturer Korea Aerospace Industries to fortify UH/HH-60 special operations helicopters for the South Korean military.