Joe Biden said it was now up to Donald Trump to help ensure the success of the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages agreement their teams jointly brokered, warning the incoming US president it would require “persistence” and “the belief in diplomacy backed by deterrence”.
“After so much pain, death and loss of life, today the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” Biden said in brief remarks during a visit to South Carolina on his last full day as president. “We anticipate several hundred [aid] trucks will enter the Gaza Strip probably just as I am speaking.”
Welcoming the initial stage of the ceasefire in which three female hostages were released by Hamas to the Israel Defense Forces via the International Committee of the Red Cross, Biden said he had received reports the women were “out of the hands of their captors and they appear to be in good health”.
He hailed an unusual degree of cooperation with Trump’s aides in the negotiations that produced the deal last week, adding it now “falls on the next administration to help” implement the accord.
“I was pleased to have our team speak as one voice in the final days. It was both necessary and effective and unprecedented,” Biden said.
“But success is going to require persistence and continuing support for our friends in the region and the belief in diplomacy backed by deterrence.”
Biden defended his staunch support for Israel throughout the war.
“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.”
Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said that if Hamas backtracked on the ceasefire deal, the US would fully support Israel on a response of its choosing.
Waltz told CBS television that Trump and his team had offered that assurance to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“If Hamas reneges on this deal and Hamas backs out, moves the goalpost, what have you, we will support Israel in doing what it has to do,” he said, adding: “Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable.”
The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, warned earlier that if Hamas remained in power in the Gaza Strip, “the regional instability it causes might continue”.
If the international community wanted a permanent ceasefire, Sa’ar added, then it must include the dismantling of Hamas as a military power and ruling entity in Gaza.
“Theoretically we can achieve it by an agreement, but that will be negotiated in the future during the first phase,” Sa’ar said.
Waltz was also optimistic about the Trump administration being able to broker a normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia as part of the Abraham accords under which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have established formal relations with Israel.
Leaders around the world joined the chorus of relief, with Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, hailing the release by Hamas of British-Israeli citizen Emily Damari.
“[Damari] will now be reunited with her family, including her mother, Amanda, who has never stopped her tireless fight to bring her daughter home,” Starmer said in a statement.
“I wish them all the very best as they begin the road to recovery after the intolerable trauma they have experienced.”
Starmer called for the remaining phases of the ceasefire deal to be “implemented in full and on schedule, including the release of those remaining hostages and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza”.
“The UK stands ready to do everything it can to support a permanent and peaceful solution,” he said.
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, called it a “day of joy” after the “terrible suffering of the civilian population”.
“We should use the momentum now to work toward a Palestinian state that can peacefully coexist with the state of Israel,” Scholz said on X.
His foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, in a post on X thanked “the negotiating teams from Qatar, Egypt & the USA, whose efforts we have supported intensively”.
“If everyone honours the agreements, this #ceasefire can be more than just a moment to catch our breath,” she wrote.
“For first time in a long while, people in #Gaza can breathe again without fear of bombs. Yet they still lack everything: food, medical care & emergency shelters. With our partners, we do everything we can to ensure that urgently needed aid reaches them quickly as agreed.”
Baerbock’s Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani, will travel to the region on Monday for meetings with Ithe Israeli president, Isaac Herzog,Sa’ar and the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Mustafa, his office said.
“The entry into force of the agreement offers a historic opportunity for the Israeli people, for the Palestinian people and for the entire region,” Tajani said.
“I will confirm to the Israeli and Palestinian authorities the Italian government’s commitment to alleviate the painful conditions of the civilian population that has suffered so much.”
Pope Francis said he hoped the agreement “will be respected immediately by the parties,” expressing “gratitude to the mediators”.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
