Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman under former President Joe Biden, has told UK broadcaster Sky News it is “without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes” in Gaza.

Miller, who spent more than a year justifying Washington’s unwavering support for Israel despite mounting evidence it was violating international law in Gaza, said it was an “open question” whether the Israeli state “has pursued a policy of deliberately committing war crimes”.

“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 and members of the Israeli military have committed war crimes,” Miller said, adding that Israeli soldiers have not been held accountable.

Responding to the interview, Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy think tank, said the Biden administration deceived the American people.

“They misled the public and the Congress because Biden wanted to keep sending weapons” to Israel, Duss wrote on social media. “I’m glad Miller is speaking up now, even if it’s late. We need to hear from more of his colleagues, because once again: They all knew.”

From the start of the war in October 2023 to when Biden left office on January 20, his administration funneled billions of dollars in military assistance to Israel despite reports that U.S. weapons were being used in deadly attacks on Palestinian civilians.

U.S. laws prohibit arming countries engaged in human rights abuses. But advocates said Biden’s administration skewed the facts and denied well-documented Israeli violations.

You can read more about the Biden administration’s stance in our story from March last year here.