The Middle East has been “fundamentally transformed” amid the conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, the outgoing US president has said

Outgoing US President Joe Biden has praised Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the wider Middle East as “extremely successful,” claiming that the region has been “fundamentally transformed,” with Iran becoming its “weakest in decades.”

Biden made the remarks during a visit to South Carolina on his last full day in office on Sunday, welcoming the ceasefire reached between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

“After so much pain, death, and loss of life, today the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” he said, commending Israel’s campaigns against Hamas and the Lebanese-based group Hezbollah as “extremely successful.”

Hamas lost its senior leadership, while its “sponsors in the Middle East have been badly weakened by Israel, backed by the US,” the president stated. He added that Hezbollah’s leaders were “destroyed” and the group has been “significantly weakened.”

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Biden also mentioned the collapse of former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, which was toppled by a surprise jihadist offensive late last year, suggesting that this development was favorable to Israel and the US.

“The Assad regime next door in Syria is gone, removing Iran’s ready access to Lebanon. Iran is in its weakest position in decades,” he said.

Biden went on to claim that Washington’s support for West Jerusalem prevented a larger war in the Middle East. “I concluded that abandoning the course I was on would not have led us to the ceasefire we’re witnessing today. Instead, it would have risked the wider war in the region that many feared. Now the region has been fundamentally transformed.”

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The US president’s comments coincided with the long-awaited ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect on Sunday. The two sides reached the agreement earlier that week, agreeing to halt the conflict that had gone on for around 15 months and to exchange prisoners.

The hostilities between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza flared up when the militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,100 people and taking more than 200 hostages. Israel’s military response resulted in massive destruction and claimed more than 46,000 lives in the enclave, according to Gaza health officials. The escalation also prompted a new conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and led to several exchanges of missile strikes between Israel and Iran.