Biden hails ceasefire-hostage deal, attributes it to US diplomacy, pressure on Hamas

US President Joe Biden hails the recently announced ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, asserting that it is the result of the pressure and isolation placed on Hamas along with determined American diplomacy.

“This deal will halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much-needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians and reunite the hostages with their families after more than 15 months in captivity,” Biden says in a statement.

The deal agreed today is the same one whose “precise contours” he laid out in a speech last May, he says, and notes that the proposal was endorsed by the UN Security Council.

The US president says today’s agreement is “not only of the extreme pressure that Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and weakening of Iran — but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy,” he says. “My diplomacy never ceased in their efforts to get this done.”

“Even as we welcome this news, we remember all the families whose loved ones were killed in Hamas’s October 7th attack, and the many innocent people killed in the war that followed,” Biden says.

“I am also if thinking of the American families, three of whom have living hostages in Gaza and four awaiting return of remains after what has been the most horrible ordeal imaginable. Under this deal, we are determined to bring all of them home,” he continues.

“It is long past time for the fighting to end and the work of building peace and security to begin,” Biden adds, noting that he will speak publicly about the deal soon.