Robert Gates, the former US defence secretary and CIA chief, has supported the Biden administration’s decision to hold back a shipment of “2,000 pound [907kg] bombs” to Israel, saying that such munitions “are not precision-guided” and “inevitably lead to a lot of collateral damage”, Al Jazeera reports.

Gates told the CBS broadcaster that he was “all for providing other kinds of weapons to Israel” to “at least dramatically weaken Hamas for the long-term” but added that “we don’t think the way to do that is to flatten two-thirds of the buildings in Gaza”.

“When our allies ignore us, I think it’s reasonable to take actions that try to get their attention,” he said.