Former President Joe Biden commended President Trump for his efforts to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. 

Mr. Biden said he was “deeply grateful and relieved” that the 20 living Israeli hostages were finally released on Monday, after they went through “unimaginable hell and are finally reunited with their families and loved ones.”

“The road to this deal was not easy. My Administration worked relentlessly to bring hostages home, get relief to Palestinian civilians and end the war. I commend President Trump and his team for their work to get a renewed ceasefire deal over the finish line,” Mr. Biden said. 

The former president said that with the backing of the United States and the world the Middle East is on a “path to peace that I hope endures and a future for Israelis and Palestinians alike with equal measures of peace, dignity and safety.”

A former secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also complimented Mr. Trump, saying: “It’s good that President Trump adopted and built on the plan the Biden administration developed after months of discussion with Arab partners, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

The rare complimentary tone came just a day after Mr. Trump called his predecessor the worst president in American history in a speech at the Israeli parliament. 

Taking swipes at both Mr. Biden and President Obama, Mr. Trump said: “All of the countries in the Middle East that could have what we’re doing now, it could have happened a long time ago, but it was strangled and set back almost irretrievably by the administrations of Barack Obama and then Joe Biden.”

He added: “Nobody asked Joe Biden to come up and speak, I guarantee you that. We had a very weak administration. Worst president in the history of our country by far, and Barack Obama was not far behind, by the way.”

Mr. Biden, a self-declared Zionist, has, however, been praised by many Jews and Israelis for being staunchly pro-Israel. 

“Biden’s connection to Israel is deeply ingrained in his political DNA,” a former Middle East negotiator, Aaron David Miller, told Reuters last year.  

But Mr. Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were at odds several times during the Gaza war, in particular over the IDF’s invasion of Rafah, to which the former president was strongly opposed. 

Mr. Netanyahu is largely considered to get along better with Mr. Trump, with the president fully backing Israel’s war against Hamas and Iran.