President Joe Biden on Sunday welcomed the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, saying “the region has been fundamentally changed.”
“After so much pain, death and loss of life, today the guns have fallen silent in Gaza,” the outgoing president said just hours after the ceasefire took effect.
Biden was speaking during a visit to South Carolina on the last full day of his presidency, with Donald Trump set to succeed him – and inherit the complex task of helping the initial ceasefire lead to a more lasting peace.
Defending his staunch support for Israel against criticism that it could draw the US into a broader war, Biden said he had considered that possibility.
“But I concluded that abandoning the path I was on would not have led to the ceasefire we see today. Instead, it would have created the risk of widespread war in the region, which many people Was afraid.
“Now the field has changed fundamentally.”
Clarifying on that, Biden said that top leaders of Hamas have been killed and its sponsors in the Middle East have been badly weakened by Israel backed by the United States.
“Hezbollah, one of Hamas’s biggest supporters, was significantly weakened on the battlefield, and its leadership destroyed.”
He said Israel’s military operation was “extremely successful”, causing Hamas’s Hezbollah affiliate in Lebanon to abandon it, clearing the way for Lebanon to install a new president and prime minister, “both of whom are supporters of a sovereign Lebanon.” stands by.”
Additionally, Biden said, “The neighboring Assad regime in Syria is gone, cutting off Iran’s access to Lebanon. Iran is in its most vulnerable position in decades.”
The fighting in Gaza has worried the Biden administration since Hamas launched a surprise and bloody incursion into Israel in October 2023.
In his comments he did not mention the other main criticism of his administration’s support for Israel, as many Americans, shocked by the rising death toll in the war, called on him during last year’s presidential election to rein in the US ally. Said.
Biden aides have said the final terms of the ceasefire largely follow the outline for a cease-fire he proposed in May.
But President-elect Trump and his advisers say only his tough talk and the involvement of his own aides with the Biden team ultimately helped calm the guns in Gaza.
Biden on Sunday acknowledged the importance of the role played by Trump and his allies.
“It is now up to the next administration to help implement this agreement,” he said.
“I’m glad our team spoke with one voice in the final days. It was both necessary and effective and unprecedented.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
