SEOUL, South Korea — State news media on Thursday confirmed the removal of a hard-line general as North Korea’s military chief, the latest sign of an overhaul by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, who South Korean officials say has replaced nearly half of his top officials in the past two years.

The firing of Gen. Kim Kyok-sik and the rise of Gen. Ri Yong-gil to replace him as head of the general staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army were the latest in a series of high-profile reshuffles that Mr. Kim has engineered in what is widely believed to be a bid to consolidate his grip on the North’s elites.

Since taking power after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in 2011, the younger Mr. Kim has replaced 44 percent of North Korea’s 218 top military, party and government officials, the South’s Ministry of Unification said in a report. Analysts say he engineered this and other reshuffles to retire or sideline the generals who served his father and to promote a new set of aides who will owe their loyalty directly to him.

Little is known about General Ri. He gained the attention of outside analysts when North Korean news media reported that he was one of the generals who advised Mr. Kim this spring during a time of high tension on the divided Korean Peninsula when the North threatened the United States and South Korea with nuclear strikes.