secretary rice but our predecessors and of course now me, this story we have been engaged with way or another, and i think each of us has probably brought the conviction to it that we could and should do everything possible to try to get to a better conclusion, a good conclusion for this story, and so many of us have laboured to do just that. one of the lessons we have to take away is that, as resourceful and powerful as we are, we cannot make decisions for others, they have got to make hard choices and take chances. we can do everything possible to push and encourage and support but ultimately the decision lies with those most directly concerned, that is one

thing, but the second thing is, and i believe this strongly, there is no doubt we have tried to move this to a better place, and yes, we have absolutely seen both progress and promise and the question is whether leaders on all sides with the people behind them, will find a way to seize on those opportunities? as i laid out just the other day in some detail, when we took office we were focused on pursuing great integration in the region, as the real answer to creating more security and more peace an opportunity for people, not trying to change individual countries, governments, societies. but bringing them closer together. and before the 7th of october, we had done a lot of work on this integration, building on the

abraham accord of the first trump administration, pointing to the normal relations between israel and saudi arabia, and we were planning to go to saudi arabia and israel because we had made some progress on the 10th of october, which of course did not happen, to do a couple of things, to help finalise the agreements that were necessary to get the normalisation, and as part of that, to find a clear way forward and a pathway to a palestinian state. vital to saudi arabia and are important to us. even with everything that has happened since october the 7th, i believe strongly, including from many conversations with leaders in israel, saudi arabia and beyond. that the desire to pursue integration and bring countries together remains strong, remains powerful and

can be a driving force for finally resolving some of the other questions including the palestinian question. israel's deepest desire from the day one of its founding was to be treated like any country in the region and have normal relations and it has been demonstrated that that is possible. and desired. but it requires, amongst other things ending the conflict in gaza which we are now on the verge of doing as a result of everything we have put into this, an agreement that president biden put forward in may and got the entire world to endorse and in the months since we've been working to negotiate the final details and get it implemented and that is where we are now. so a credible pathway to a policy to states and leaders have to summon the courage to do that and i laid outideas courage to do that and i laid out ideas to how you get there

but i believe that is possible and that driving desire for immigration, that is something that can carry it forward and finally i will say this. we've also seen as a result of the work we have done what the possibilities are. for israel, when it was attacked in an unprecedented way by iran, a direct attack with hundreds of missiles and drones, not only did we come to israel's active defence for the first time ever, we brought other countries along including countries along including countries in the region. and israel now sees powerfully what it stands to gain from better integration in the region including a common security architecture. all of them can see it as a way to effectively isolate the troublemaker in the region, iran. all of that is there, all of that is possible and i think for the incoming administration, it is important to show that here is one path and what can be achieved by following the path and then

there is another which is perpetual violence, destruction, terrorism, despair for people. that is the choice and i think we have now put in place and on the work that handing it off can be used to build a strong foundation and move down the much more positive path.— move down the much more positive path. thank you for our positive path. thank you for your service, _ positive path. thank you for your service, mr _ positive path. thank you for your service, mr secretary l positive path. thank you for i your service, mr secretary and thank— your service, mr secretary and thank you _ your service, mr secretary and thank you for doing this. i trust _ thank you for doing this. i trust that you are happy to finally— trust that you are happy to finally see your children. i wanted _ finally see your children. i wanted to ask you on gaza, you mentioned _ wanted to ask you on gaza, you mentioned a tremendous relief in the — mentioned a tremendous relief in the region for the palestinians and israel and it seems — palestinians and israel and it seems to— palestinians and israel and it seems to be there is uncertainty for this ceasefire and basically it was announced yesterday and it was supposed to be — yesterday and it was supposed to be implemented on sunday, that is— to be implemented on sunday, that is four days, quite a long

time — that is four days, quite a long time which has led to new strikes _ time which has led to new strikes upon gaza today and overnight. how confident are you that _ overnight. how confident are you that the ceasefires going to happen and if i may pass the broader— to happen and if i may pass the broader question after the four years. — broader question after the four years, now that your tenure is finishing. _ years, now that your tenure is finishing, what is your proudest accomplishment in your years— proudest accomplishment in your years and — proudest accomplishment in your years and what is your biggest disappointment. gn years and what is your biggest disappointment.— disappointment. on the ceasefire _ disappointment. on the ceasefire i _ disappointment. on the ceasefire i am - disappointment. on thej ceasefire i am confident disappointment. on the - ceasefire i am confident and i expect it will begin on sunday. it's not exactly surprising that a process in a negotiation that a process in a negotiation that has been this challenging and fraught that you might get and fraught that you might get a loose end, and we are tying up a loose end, and we are tying up the loose end as we speak. and i've been on the phone in one way or another all morning with ourfriends from

one way or another all morning with our friends from the qatari region and this will be good moving forward and we see the start of the implementation of the agreement on sunday. and in terms of my own tenure and what i take from it, there will be plenty of opportunity to reflect on that in the weeks and months ahead. but in terms of satisfaction, as i said at the outset, we came in knowing that we had to reset the foundation of american diplomacy and put faith back in american politics and resetting the foundation and, as i said, reimagining and rejuvenating these alliances and partnerships. it's the greatest strength we bring to virtually everything that we have to tackle around the world, these voluntary partnerships that have stood us in such good stead over so many years and i think are vital to effectively operating in this more complicated and more contested and more combustible world and that's exactly what we did. the point is not doing it for the sake of doing it, it is doing it for the sake of more

effectively dealing with the world we are operating and i think we have demonstrated that. when ukraine was attacked by russia, because of the investments we had made in our partnerships and alliances we were able to bring together 50 countries, keep them together and marshall their focus and resources on helping to defend ukraine and we've done that very successfully and we've done that in a way where many other countries picked up the burden. when it comes to may be the biggest systemic challenge we face in the international system, that is china, and the capacity house, uniquely, whether it is militarily or economically automatically to reshape the international order and what we've been able to do through stronger alliances and partnerships is focus other countries in ways we haven't before on how to deal effectively with the challenges posed by china and we have much

greater convergence between us and partners in europe, between us and partners in asia, amongst all of us in confronting these challenges, and i've listed a few ways in which we are working much more closely together and as i said before, when you bring just the united states, it has a lot of weight, but when it comes to economic issues and there is the capacity to drown our communities and workers and we are taking on and we are 20% of world gdp with allies and partners across europe who are similarly aggrieved by these practices, we are 50 or 60% of world gdp and it's a lot more effective than getting china to change conduct. there are two ways in which we have used investment with allies and partners, with real problems and challenges. there are so

many issues affecting the lives of our people and we need to have a material impact on making things better. we have said this before, the number one killer of america's aged 18 and up to 45 is fentanyl. by definition it has to be tackled cooperatively with other countries. they come close to our borders and they get synthesised on fentanyl and synthesised on fenta nyl and they synthesised on fentanyl and they come into the us and they kill people. we brought all of these countries together and we are working in close to have a material benefit on the life of the american people. and we approach this from greater strength and greater effectiveness. disappointments, of course, there is always the

things that you didn't get done and you wonder if you could ah van should have you asked yourself van shoul