Matthew Miller, the former US State Department spokesperson under President Joe Biden, said in an interview published Monday that Israeli forces have committed war crimes in the war against Hamas in Gaza.

“It is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes,” Miller, who served as spokesperson during the last two years of the Biden administration, told Sky News in a podcast interview.

However, he clarified that he does not believe Israel is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.

“There are two ways to think about the commission of war crimes,” Miller said. “One is if the state has pursued a policy of deliberately committing war crimes or is acting recklessly in a way that aids and abets war crimes. Is the state committing war crimes?

“That, I think, is an open question [in regard to Gaza]. I think what is almost certainly not an open question is that there have been individual incidents that have been war crimes where Israeli soldiers, members of the Israeli military, have committed war crimes,” he said.

Israel has long denied such accusations, asserting that it takes steps to avoid civilian casualties while fighting terror groups that operate among civilians.

The international community has challenged this, saying the high number of reported civilian casualties and Israeli limitations on the entry of food into Gaza cast doubt on its commitment to protecting........

© The Times of Israel