Thursday afternoon a truce was declared between warring Israel and the Palestinians.

President Joe Biden credited his long-standing friendship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  and ‘quiet and relentless diplomacy’ along with efforts by Egypt in arriving at the truce which hopefully will end the bloody 11-day conflict.

“We’ve held intensive high-level discussions, hour-by-hour, literally, (with) Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and other Middle Eastern countries with an aim of avoiding the sort of prolonged conflict we’ve seen in previous years when the hostilities have broken out,” Biden said.

Biden’s years of US relations played a major role in this development.