But though he said Israel had not committed war crimes, he claimed that “most international observers would say that the attacks against Gaza were indiscriminate and that a lot of innocent people were killed who should not have been killed.

“I think there is a general belief that, with that technology, they could have been more discriminate in terms of taking out weapons that were threatening them.”

In response to questions about Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Mr Sanders said that “if the expansion was illegal, moving into territory that was not their territory, I think withdrawal from those territories is appropriate.”