President Joe Biden on Sunday welcomed the ceasefire taking hold between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, saying the “region has been fundamentally transformed.”“After so much pain, death and loss of life, today the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” the outgoing president said, just hours after the ceasefire took effect.Biden was speaking during a visit to South Carolina on the last full day of his presidency, with Donald Trump set to succeed him – and to inherit the complex task of helping shepherd the initial ceasefire to a more lasting peace.For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Defending his determined support for Israel against criticism that it could have drawn the US into a wider war, Biden said he had considered that possibility. “But I concluded abandoning the course I was on would not have led us to the ceasefire we’re seeing today. But instead, it would have risked the wider war in the region that so many feared.“Now the region has been