President Joe Biden on Sunday welcomed the ceasefire taking hold between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, saying the "region has been fundamentally transformed."
"After so much pain, death and loss of life, today the guns in Gaza have gone silent," 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 to inherit the complex task of helping shepherd the initial ceasefire to a more lasting peace.
Defending his determined support for Israel against criticism that it could have drawn the US into a wider war, Biden said he had considered that possibility.
"But I concluded abandoning the course I was on would not have led us to the ceasefire we're seeing today. But instead, it would have risked the wider war in the region that so many feared.
"Now the region has been fundamentally transformed."
Expounding on that, Biden said Hamas's top leaders had 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 backers, was significantly weakened on the battlefield, and its leadership was destroyed."
He said Israel's military campaign was "extremely successful," leading Hamas's Hezbollah allies in Lebanon to abandon it, making way for Lebanon to install a new president and prime minister, "both of whom support a sovereign Lebanon."
In addition, Biden said: "The Assad regime next door in Syria is gone, removing Iran's ready access to Lebanon. Iran is in the weakest position in decades."
The fighting in Gaza has preoccupied Biden's administration since Hamas launched a surprise and bloody intrusion into Israel in October 2023.
In his comments he did not refer to the other main criticism of his administration's support for Israel as many Americans, aghast at the soaring death toll in the war, called during last year's presidential election for him to rein the US ally in.
Biden's aides have said the final terms of the ceasefire largely follow the outlines of the truce he proposed in May.
But President-elect Trump and his advisors say that only his tough talk and the involvement of his own aides alongside the Biden team helped finally quiet the guns in Gaza.
Biden on Sunday acknowledged the importance of the role played by Trump and his aides.
"Now it falls on the next administration to help them implement this deal," he said.
"I was pleased to have our team speak as one voice in the final days. It was both necessary and effective and unprecedented."
