North Korea has shown a high level of solidarity with Russia by deploying its forces to help Moscow repel the Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk Region, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

The long-rumored presence of North Korean forces in the area was officially confirmed earlier in the day during a televised meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country's chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov.

North Korean forces were deployed into the area under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang, which came into force last December.

Among other things, the treaty envisions mutual military assistance "by all means available" in the event of an attack, Zakharova noted.

"The solidarity shown by our Korean friends is a manifestation of the high, essentially allied level of our relations. We are confident that our ties will continue to strengthen and develop," Zakharova told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The Army general hailed the country's forces for their "resilience" and praised their contribution to the liberation of the area around the town of Sudzha, which was occupied by Ukrainian troops.

Kiev and its Western backers had long alleged that North Korean troops were involved in the hostilities in Kursk Region, which was invaded by Ukrainian forces last August. Prior to Saturday, Pyongyang and Moscow neither confirmed nor denied the rumors, while the Russian president had previously said it was up to the two nations to determine how they fulfill their obligations under the partnership pact.

The Israeli army unit that killed aid workers in Gaza's Rafah last month had received a report about increased ambulance traffic on the route shortly before the incident. The soldiers fired at the vehicles continuously for three and a half minutes - even from point-blank range - reloading their ammunition multiple times, despite attempts by the aid workers to identify themselves.

The Israeli military has released details of an investigation into its own killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and aid workers in Gaza last month, saying its code of ethics was not violated and only one soldier is dismissed, in an attack that sparked outrage in the international community.