Biden Brags Ceasefire Deal Is the One He Wrote — 7 Months and 10,000 Deaths Ago

In an address announcing the ceasefire agreement in Gaza that was reached on Wednesday, President Joe Biden boasted that he had actually introduced the framework for the deal seven months ago, last May. Israel has killed at least 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza since then, and likely far more.

“The elements of this deal were what I laid out in detail this past May, which was embraced by countries around the world and endorsed overwhelmingly by the UN Security Council,” Biden said, sweeping aside the fact that the U.S. has vetoed multiple ceasefire proposals mirroring his proposal in the UN Security Council.

Later, the president raised the same point when defending against the assertion that it was Donald Trump’s incoming presidency that spurred Israel to finally agree to a ceasefire deal.

“This is the exact framework of the deal I proposed back in May — exact. And we got the world to endorse it. Secondly, it’s America’s support for Israel that helped them badly weaken Hamas and create the conditions for this deal,” he said, perhaps ignoring that his own government has assessed that Israel’s assault in Gaza has created as many Hamas members as it’s killed.

Other sources have also confirmed that the text of the agreement is the same as the May proposal.

It is strange that Biden would boast about taking nearly seven months to get parties to agree to the deal — especially as his administration had claimed just months into the genocide that it was opposed to Israel’s approach. On its surface, Biden’s bragging projects weakness in negotiations, signaling to other global leaders that the U.S. will apparently allow officials, in this case Israeli ones, to delay a process indefinitely, against the U.S.’s supposed wishes.

On a deeper level, it shows that the president is willing to sweep aside the fact that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of deaths could have been avoided if he had forced parties to adopt the framework in May. Then, the official death toll stood at 36,000. The official toll severely undercounts deaths due to extreme limitations like Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health care system; today, the death toll sits at 46,000, but experts say the true count could be far higher, ranging in the hundreds of thousands.

Here is a non-comprehensive list of some of the massacres that could have been avoided if Biden had forced Israel to adopt the ceasefire framework — which was swiftly accepted by Hamas officials — when the administration introduced it publicly on May 31.

• June 1: The day after the framework was publicly introduced, the Gaza Health Ministry said that Israeli forces had killed 95 people and injured 350 in the past 24 hours. Health officials have reported dozens of Palestinian deaths each day of the genocide, with many from causes like illness, starvation or being trapped under rubble not being uncounted.
• June 5: Humanitarian groups found in a survey that 85 percent of children in Gaza were going full days without food as a result of Israel’s escalated humanitarian blockade and closure of the Rafah crossing in early May. The UN said on June 17 that 50,000 children were in need of treatment, which was extremely scarce, for acute malnutrition. Health officials reported young children dying from Israel’s famine conditions in the Strip.
• June 8: Israel carries out one of the deadliest single massacres of the genocide when soldiers storm Nusierat refugee camp, some hidden in civilian vehicles, killing at least 274 people and injuring 698 as Israel retrieved four Israeli captives. At least 64 children were killed. The White House calls the operation “daring” and “successful.”
• July 13: Israel drops eight 2,000-pound bombs on the “humanitarian safe zone” in Al-Mawasi, massacring 90 people.
• July 25: Dozens of U.S. health workers who had returned from Gaza missions warn in a letter to Biden that the true death toll could be at least 92,000 people as of late July, and that thousands are dying due to Israel’s humanitarian blockade.
• July 31: Israel kills Al Jazeera journalists Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi, who had become well-known for their reporting in northern Gaza. They are two of the over 200 journalists killed by Israel throughout the genocide, according to health officials.
• August 10: Israeli forces, using at least one U.S.-provided bomb, kill at least 100 Palestinians gathered for morning prayer at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.
• September 10: At least 19 people are killed when Israel drops four bombs on a tent camp in the “safe zone.” Officials say the true toll of the attack is unknown because of the massive impact of the bombs, which left nothing but massive dirt craters where tents once stood.
• September 17 and 18: Israel kills an estimated 42 people in Lebanon and injures an estimated 4,000 in two subsequent attacks in which Israeli officials rigged pagers and beepers to explode. This was a major escalation of Israel’s war with Hezbollah, which has long said it would stop its fighting with Israel if the genocide was stopped. The death toll in Lebanon, largely fueled by Israeli attacks, goes on to later exceed 3,000 people.
• October 7: On the one-year anniversary of the genocide, Israel escalates its invasion of northern Gaza. In the subsequent months, it blocks or allows the impediment of every humanitarian aid convoy attempting to enter the area, causing food authorities to warn of famine in the region. Israel also raids and destroys every hospital left in the region, making it almost impossible to accurately report the death toll. The U.S. had provided a record $18 billion in military aid to Israel in the first year of the genocide, and likely more that has never been publicly reported.
• October 29: Israel bombs a crowded residential building in northern Gaza using at least one U.S. bomb, killing a minimum of 93, including 20 children.
• November 8: The UN reports that Israel is killing at least 67 children each day in Gaza on average.
• January 9: Health officials report that at least eight newborns had died in the last month due to hypothermia. In the first week of 2025, Israel killed at least 74 children, UNICEF said.

• January 15: Biden and other officials announce that a ceasefire deal has been reached as Israel escalates its attacks in anticipation of the deal being implemented. Israel kills 74 Palestinians, including at least 21 children, in less than 24 hours after the deal was announced.