“I hereby direct every executive department and agency head … to revoke any active security clearances held by the aforementioned individuals,” Trump said in his memorandum on Friday.

Trump’s latest executive action is seen as part of a pattern of reprisal that he has carried out targeting political opponents, including Biden and other former senior White House officials, who traditionally retain their security clearance as a courtesy.

Aside from Biden and Harris, the list of names stripped of their authorisation to see state secrets included Biden’s family members along with former secretary of state Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and defeated presidential candidate, was also on the list.

In the memorandum sent to agency heads and distributed by the White House communications office, Trump said the named officials should no longer be allowed access to classified material.

“I also direct all executive department and agency heads to revoke unescorted access to secure United States Government facilities from these individuals.”

The Trump-Biden feud

Trump, who continues to falsely claim that Biden schemed to steal the 2020 election, which he lost, has remained furious with his predecessor and lashes out frequently.

In 2021, Biden had revoked the security clearance for Trump, who was then a former president.

Trump was himself investigated for breaching security rules during the period between his first and second term in office, by storing classified White House documents in his Mar-a-Lago resort.

aThe investigation was wound up after Trump returned to office.

Many of the individuals on Trump’s list were high-profile political appointees of his Democratic predecessor, but former Republican lawmaker and vocal Trump critic Liz Cheney is also named.

Fiona Hill, a British-born intelligence analyst who served under both Democrat and Republican administrations, including as an adviser in Trump’s White House, has also been targeted.

She is joined by former colleague Alexander Vindman, a Kyiv-born retired senior officer in the US Army who fell foul of Trump after expressing concerns about White House contacts with Russia.

Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer in Washington who represents whistleblowers, and Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican lawmaker who is a sharp Trump critic, were also included in the list.

“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“JOE, YOU’RE FIRED,” the Republican added in a reference to his catchphrase on the reality TV show, The Apprentice.

Trump has already revoked the security clearance of more than four dozen former intelligence officials whom he accused of meddling in the 2020 election in Biden’s favour.

Trump posted on Friday evening that Biden “set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents”.

He said Biden “could not be trusted with sensitive information”, citing a justice department inquiry into the Democrat’s storage of classified files, which concluded that while there was no need to press criminal charges, Biden had a poor memory.

The investigation said Biden was unable to recall significant life events such as the year his son, Beau, died and when he served as vice-president to Barack Obama. Biden rejected that characterisation at the time.

The former president, who has taken some time away from the limelight since leaving his post last month, did not immediately respond to Trump’s move on Friday.

The BBC contacted Biden’s talent agency, which recently signed him, but no response was immediately forthcoming.

In 2021, Biden stopped Trump from receiving classified intelligence briefings, the first time an ex-president had ever been denied such information, which is traditionally given as a courtesy.

He justified the move by saying Trump could not be trusted because of his “erratic behaviour”, even before the 2021 US Capitol riot, which Democrats accused Trump of inciting in the last days of his first term.

“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing?” Biden said at the time. “What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?

In 2022, federal agents discovered classified files in Trump’s Florida home and he was charged with wilfully retaining defence information. He pleaded not guilty, and the case was ultimately dropped once he was re-elected.

Since returning to office, Trump has taken steps to revoke the security clearances and protections of other top officials linked to the Biden administration.

Among those whose security clearance and detail has been retracted is former top US military commander Mark Milley, a vocal critic of Trump.

The new Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has also ordered Milley’s “conduct” to be investigated, and his military grade to be reviewed.

Trump has also revoked the security detail of former chief medical adviser to the president, Anthony Fauci, who led the US response to Covid-19.

Trump said at the time the decision was “very standard” and that it was not possible for everyone to have security protection for the rest of their life because they worked for the government.

He ended security protection for his own former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secret Service protection for his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, last month.

The president has also ordered that the security clearance of dozens of former intelligence officials, including two ex-CIA directors, be revoked.

They signed a letter in 2020 suggesting that reports about a laptop owned by Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, were a Russian hoax.

But the computer, whose trove of data contained evidence of drug abuse, prostitution and foreign business deals, was real.

Trump  had repeatedly pledged retribution against those who criticised him, prompting Biden to take an extraordinary action: He issued preemptive pardons for those who might be prosecuted under Trump’s presidency.

Biden’s pardon offered protection to three frequent targets of Trump’s ire, as well as members of his own family.

One was Dr Anthony Fauci, the immunologist who clashed with Trump over the country’s COVID-19 emergency response. Another was General Mark Milley, a Trump appointee-turned-critic who chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a panel of top military leaders, from 2019 to 2023.

Also shielded under the pardon were members of the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack, which investigated the events of January 6, 2021.

On  that day, a group of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in an apparent effort to stop the certification of Trump’s defeat in 2020.

In its final report, the committee referred Trump for criminal prosecution, accusing him of assisting an insurrection against the government.

Trump has repeatedly threatened members of that committee with imprisonment, particularly Liz Cheney, its most prominent Republican.

“For what they did, yeah, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump told the TV programme Meet the Press in December.

Biden noted these threats in his statement on Monday, warning of potential prosecutions.

“Our nation relies on dedicated, selfless public servants every day. They are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Biden wrote. “Yet alarmingly, public servants have been subjected to ongoing threats and intimidation for faithfully discharging their duties.”

However, Biden emphasised that these pardons “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgement that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing”.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom,” he said on Wednesday.

Biden, 82, took aim at an ultra-wealthy “tech-industrial complex” which he said could wield unchecked power over Americans.

He also used his final televised speech from the White House to issue warnings about climate change and social media disinformation.

Speaking from the Oval Office where his family had gathered to watch, he touted his single-term administration’s record, referencing job creation, infrastructure spending, healthcare, leading the country out of the pandemic, and making the US a safer country.

He added, however, that “it will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together, but the seeds are planted, and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come”.

Biden wished Donald Trump’s incoming administration success, but then issued a series of pointed warnings, with the president stating “so much is at stake right now”.

On climate change, he said “powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we’ve taken to tackle the climate crisis to serve their own interests for power and profit”.

On misinformation, Biden warned that “Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power”.

He also took a swipe at social media companies such as Meta, which has recently announced it will get rid of independent fact checkers. “Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit,” Biden said.

And his attack on an ultra-wealthy “tech-industrial complex” was a veiled reference at Silicon Valley executives such as Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who is close to Trump and provided huge financial backing to his campaign.

Other tech bosses such as Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have made efforts to improve relations with Trump ahead of his return to the White House.

Closing his speech, Biden called on Americans to “stand guard” of their country: “May you all be the keeper of the flame.”

His farewell address came on the same day he announced a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which he referenced in his opening remarks.

Biden said the negotiations had been some of the toughest of his career, and took credit for helping get the deal over the line.

The deal will see a ceasefire take effect on 19 January, a day before Trump is due to take office. The incoming president has also taken credit for the agreement, saying it was only possible because he won the election in November.

In the report, released Monday, David Weiss called his prosecution of the president’s son on gun and tax crimes “impartial” and “not partisan politics”.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer said the report showed Mr Weiss’s investigation “was a cautionary tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power.”

Biden issued an official pardon for his son, who was facing sentencing for two criminal cases, in early December.

While issuing the pardon, the president said his son had been “singled out” and called his cases “a miscarriage of justice” and “raw politics”.

Mr Weiss called those statements “gratuitous and wrong”.

“I prosecuted the two cases against [Hunter] Biden because he broke the law,” he wrote in his report.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges earlier in September, and was found guilty of being an illegal drug user in possession of a gun in June.

His father’s full and unconditional pardon for his son came after the president had repeatedly said he would not give him clemency.

It was not the first time a US president has pardoned a family member.

Bill Clinton pardoned his younger half-brother, Roger Clinton, for a 1985 cocaine-related offence in 2001.

In 2020, Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of his daughter, Ivanka, who pled guilty to federal charges of tax evasion and illegal campaign donation payments in 2005.

In his report, Mr Weiss acknowledged that, but added: “none have taken the occasion as an opportunity to malign the public servants at the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations”.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine counts of federal tax fraud in September, for which he had been facing up to 17 years in prison.

He was also convicted of three felonies in connection with a gun purchase in June, for which he had been facing up to 25 years in prison.

The investigations into the president’s son had resurfaced uncomfortable and embarrassing details about his personal life, including his addiction to crack-cocaine and allegedpayments to escorts.

President Biden had mostly kept quiet during the investigations into his son but came fiercely to his defence in his pardoning.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” President Biden said.

“In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

He added: “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”

The pardon covers the period from 1 January 2014 to 1 December 2024, “including but not limited to” the tax and gun crimes for which he was found guilty.

Mr Weiss said due to that unconditional pardon, he could not make any “additional charging decisions” relating to Hunter Biden over that period.

“It would be inappropriate to discuss whether additional charges are warranted,” he said.

Mr Weiss has previously defended his inquiry into the president’s son.

In 2023, he told the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee there had never been political pressure or interference in his work from the justice department.

Mr Weiss’s investigation into Hunter Biden was heavily scrutinised on both sides of the political spectrum.

Democrats said it was politically charged and felt that Hunter Biden had an unfair target on his back.

Republicans believed the justice department was not pursuing charges aggressively enough and showing the president’s son unfair favouritism.

Hunter Biden’s guilty convictions came after a collapsed plea deal in 2023.

A judge declined to approve the deal – which Republicans had branded a “sweetheart deal” – that would have had Hunter Biden plead guilty to the tax evasion charges to avoid the more serious gun-related charges.

In a statement released Monday, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, criticised Mr Weiss for the failed deal.

“Mr. Weiss also fails to explain why he reneged on his own agreement, a reversal that came at the 11th hour in court as he and his office faced blistering attacks from Republicans,” Mr Lowell said.

At a White House briefing on Wednesday, he said he was “deeply satisfied this day has come” and called the negotiations some of the toughest of his career.

The agreement consists of three phases, Biden said, the first of which includes a “full and complete ceasefire” which will begin on 19 January – the day before he leaves office.

He said a still to be negotiated second phase of the agreement would bring a “permanent end to the war”, adding that he was confident the deal would hold.

Biden told reporters that the first phase would involve the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all the populated areas of Gaza, the release of hostages held by Hamas – including women, elderly and wounded prisoners – and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

“Soon the hostages will return home to their families,” he said, adding that during the first phase “Palestinians can also return to their neighbourhoods in all areas of Gaza.”

“There are a number of details to negotiate to move from phase one to phase two, but the plan says if negotiations take longer than six weeks, the ceasefire will continue as long as the negotiations continue,” Biden said.

The president said phase two would involve the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, as well as any remaining Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza. The temporary ceasefire would become permanent at this stage, he said.

The third phase would include returning the remains of hostages who have been killed to their families and a “major reconstruction plan” for Gaza.

While Biden said his administration had been “speaking as one team” with the incoming administration of Donald Trump, the president emphasised his own role and that of his administration in closing the deal.

He said the framework for the agreement followed “the precise contours” of a plan he first introduced in May 2024.

And just as the news conference ended, the president was asked who should take credit for the deal – him or Trump. Biden turned back and said “is that a joke?” before walking away.

Trump, meanwhile, said on Truth Social that the “epic” agreement was only possible because he won November’s presidential election.

“It signalled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” he wrote.

Despite the duelling messages, the two administrations worked in close co-ordination as the ceasefire agreement came into view in recent days.

Both Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, for example, were in Doha as the talks reached the finish line.

The deal, now that it is official, gives Biden the opportunity to end his presidency on a high note, achieving an agreement he has long sought and providing one final item to burnish his foreign policy legacy.

But with just days left in office it is too late for him to feel the benefits of the deal domestically.

A ceasefire agreement while he was still the Democratic candidate in the election would have been a boon for him, given he was facing serious criticism from within his own party over his seemingly unwavering support for Israel.

Trump, meanwhile, will take the oath of office on Monday without immediately having to face the challenge of ongoing warfare in the Middle East.

The president-elect may also have the opportunity to participate in emotional celebrations, as American hostages return to the US in the weeks ahead and are reunited with their families. These feel-good moments could help the new president start his second term on an upbeat note.

Trump could more fully enjoy a political boost from Middle East peace. But he will also inherit the obligations and risks that go along with implementing a complicated multi-part agreement.

Each spectating president had achieved the validation of the American people (re-election to a second term) that has eluded Biden. And as Biden, whose term comes to an end next week, paid tribute to Carter, a fellow one-term president, it was hard not to draw other parallels too.

“Many think he was from a bygone era, but in reality, he saw well into the future,” Biden said of Carter. He went on to note Carter’s accomplishments in advancing civil rights, his work on peace and nuclear non-proliferation, and his efforts to protect the environment.

Earlier in the week, however, Biden was making the case for his own legacy and how history should judge him.

“I hope that history says that I came in and I had a plan how to restore the economy and reestablish America’s leadership in the world,” he said in a television interview. “And I hope it records that I did it with honesty and integrity; that I said what was on my mind.”

Whether that happens is subject to vigorous discussion – but he exits the White House with his approval ratings near their lowest mark of his presidency. Only 39% have a positive view, according to the latest Gallup survey, down from 57% at the start of his term.

Next week, the man he defeated in 2020 returns to power, marking what must feel to him like a dour end to a presidency.

Biden had his accomplishments – adroitly shepherding complex investment and infrastructure legislation through Congress despite narrow majorities, strengthening and expanding Nato, and appointing a remarkable number of diverse judges to the federal bench – but at least for now, that is overshadowed.

His current place in history is as the Democratic interregnum between the two Trump presidential terms. A blip, rather than a pivot.

“He’d like his legacy to be that he rescued us from Trump,” says author and Democratic strategist Susan Estrich. “But sadly, for him, his legacy is Trump again. He is the bridge from Trump One to Trump Two.”

It didn’t have to be this way. Biden and his team were buffeted by events – some within his control and some outside it. Many of the most damaging developments were entirely predictable, however – and, in fact, predicted – yet the president and his administration appeared to be caught flat-footed.

For that, they paid a high price.

From Kabul chaos to early ‘missteps’

Biden’s first misstep as president came half a world away, in the chaos that unfolded during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The exit had been negotiated during the final months of the Trump administration, but Biden backed it – despite warnings from some of his military advisors.

Those dire predictions proved prophetic, as Kabul descended into panic and unrest.

By the end of that month, Biden’s Gallup approval rating had dipped below 50% for the first time – a mark it would never again reach.

On the domestic front, the situation for the president was equally inauspicious. By summer, US inflation had surpassed 5% for the first time in 30 years.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that she believed the spike was “transitory”. Biden called it “temporary”. Some outside the administration, most notably Obama’s Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, thought otherwise.

By the time inflation reached its peak a year later, at 9.1% in June 2022, Yellen and Biden had admitted they miscalculated.

Americans did not forget or forgive, however. And although the monthly inflation numbers had dropped below 3% by summer 2024, unemployment remained low, economic growth was steady and the US had outperformed the world’s other industrialised nations, voters continued to have a pessimistic view of the economy.

Other issues followed this pattern: The Biden administration was slow to respond to the post-Covid spike in undocumented migration at the US-Mexico border.

And it was seemingly caught off-guard by the disruptive impact the Republican-backed programme of relocating migrants to Democratic-run northern cities would have on government services far from the border.

Shortages in Covid tests and infant formula, a dramatic increase in the price of eggs, the end of Roe v Wade abortion protections, and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza – for every seemingly unanticipated fire the Biden administration addressed, two new ones would emerge.

The challenges were, in fact, daunting – ones that felled incumbent leaders in democracies around the world.

But for Biden and the Democrats, hoping to prove that they were a competent and effective counterpoint not just to Trump but to global authoritarian regimes, the stakes were high.

‘An elderly man with a poor memory’

Amid all of this, responses from the administration were sometimes glaringly off-key. When asked during a television interview about raising oil production in America to reduce gas prices, in November 2021, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm responded with a laugh.

“That is hilarious,” she said. “Would that I had the magic wand.”

Biden – once regarded as a gifted communicator and orator – appeared less able to connect with the American people. Signs of his advancing years were also showing.

“Watching Biden speak, I’m like, oh my God, this is a different person,” said a senior White House official who served in the early years of the Biden administration and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“Maybe it’s simply that when you’re there every day, you don’t see it.”

A report by Robert Hur, a special counsel appointed to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents, referred to the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory”, setting off a round of hand-wringing among Democrats.

Biden’s interactions with the media were curtailed, and his public appearances tightly scripted. His verbal miscues and stumbles became fodder for Republican attacks. But Biden pressed on, determined to seek and win a second term in office.

Biden’s people: His inner circle

During his presidency, Biden surrounded himself with veterans of government service. His secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had been one of his top foreign policy advisors since his days in the Senate. Merrick Garland, a distinguished appellate court judge and Barack Obama’s ill-fated 2016 pick for the Supreme Court, was tabbed for attorney general. Yellen, his pick for treasury, had previously chaired the Federal Reserve.

Within the White House, Biden chose Ron Klain – who had worked in Democratic presidential administrations for decades – as his chief of staff. Mike Donilon, another Biden veteran, served as a senior advisor.

The team was particularly successful at managing the narrow majorities in the House and the Senate, notching early legislative victories even in the face of unified Republican resistance and reluctance from centrists in his own party.

Biden’s “American Rescue Plan”, which passed just two months after he took office, included nearly $2 trillion in new government spending. It expanded healthcare subsidies, and funded the distribution of Covid vaccines and a payment programme that cut child poverty in half, to 5%.

Later that year, Democrats and some Republicans joined to pass an infrastructure investment bill, which included $1tn in new spending on transportation, clean energy, water, broadband and other construction programmes.

Others followed, marking a legislative agenda that few first-term presidents in the modern era could match – but it came with what some critics see as a fatal flaw.

Brent Cebul, an associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that Biden’s efforts were too focused on shifting policies that take years to translate into economic benefits for average American workers.

“I think that the time horizon associated with those big pieces of legislation was way out of sync with the exigencies of the presidential election,” he said.

Biden would have been better served finding ways to bring the tangible benefits to voters more quickly – a sentiment Biden himself expressed during a recent newspaper interview.

‘Infighting and frustration’ from within

His team also proved less able when success was measured not in laws enacted but in the daily messaging battle against a political opposition that was growing increasingly assertive.

A senior Biden official said that the White House team was more decisive early on in his presidency.

“As things started to become a grind and you lose that sense of getting big things done, it can give way to infighting and frustration,” they admitted, adding that it was their sense that the circle around Biden became more insular as the pressure built.

After a two-year respite, his political opponents launched investigations, held hearings (into the Afghanistan withdrawal, the Biden family’s business dealings and more) and, in September 2023, formally initiated a presidential impeachment inquiry. All the while, Biden’s public approval languished in the low 40s.

Biden’s presidency should be seen in two halves, says Mr Cebul. The first was more accomplished. The second was less focused.

“Biden’s sense that the US was macro-economically doing quite well led him and his advisors to take their eyes off the ball when many, many Americans were still very much hurting.”

A beleaguered election campaign

On 25 April, 2023, Biden made his presidential bid official in a campaign video warning that Trump “extremists” were threatening America.

Over the following months, there would be more warnings of the danger Trump posed to American democracy. He would tout his economic plan – embracing the label “Bidenomics” – and point to how inflation was dropping while the economy was still growing.

I travelled with Biden on a June 2023 trip to Chicago, where he held a reception for deep-pocketed donors and gave a speech on the economy in an historic downtown post office.

“Bidenomics is about the future,” he said.”Bidenomics is just another way of saying: Restore the American dream.”

Mr Cebul believes that was a bad move.

“For him to then spend most of the spring and the early summer basically talking about how he’s the most successful economic president in modern history, it was just so discordant,” he said.

“Not only was the message out of sync, he was also just a terrible messenger.”

In Chicago, as in many of his speeches, Biden’s delivery was at times halting. His words sometimes mumbled and his syntax mangled.

Through it all, however, Biden was telling aides that he believed he was the man best positioned to defeat Trump – that he had done it once, and he would do it again. And those aides vigorously pushed back whenever anyone questioned Biden’s abilities.

“I’m not a young guy, that’s no secret,” Biden said in a campaign advert. “But here’s the deal: I understand how to get things done for the American people.”

Hamas, Hunter and final hurdles

In the autumn, Biden confronted yet another crisis – following the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, he quickly cautioned Israel not to overreact or overreach in its response to the bloodshed.

As with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the president turned his attention to world affairs. But unlike Ukraine, during which Biden assembled a unified western coalition against the invasion, the continued US support of Israel eroded enthusiasm and support for Biden in some quarters at home.

At the same time, Biden was confronting his son Hunter’s growing legal troubles – a June trial and conviction on gun charges and, perhaps more concerning for the president, an indictment on tax-related violations that involved Hunter’s foreign business dealings.

The airing of family discord and pain was, at the very least, a distraction and an emotional drain on the president. His ultimate decision to pardon his son, made after November’s election, was condemned by many, including some allies.

Ultimately, Biden’s presidential bid – and his presidency – came crashing down in late June on a stage in Atlanta during a debate with Trump. His confused and at times incomprehensible performance dealt his campaign a mortal blow that seemingly confirmed Republican attacks – and Democratic fears – about his advancing age.

But eventually, after Trump defiantly responded to a failed assassination attempt and held a boisterous, unified national party convention in mid-July, Biden dropped out of the race.

aaTrump’s victory over Kamala Harris, Biden’s hand-picked successor, ensured that the final electoral judgement on Biden’s half-century political career would be one of rejection and defeat.

What would Biden’s legacy have been if he had simply stepped aside – “passed the torch” in his words – without seeking a second term? No video campaign launch. No grasping for campaign messages or Trump debate disaster. Instead, a robust race for the Democratic nomination with Biden floating above it all.

“We should have had primaries,” argues Ms Estrich. “His successor would have had time to make the case.”

In the end, Biden’s age and Trump’s enduring appeal were the fires that his administration could never put out, and the ones that ultimately consumed his presidency.

In exactly one week, Trump will take the oath of office and will likely set about dismantling much of what Biden accomplished over the past four years. How effective he is at doing this will go a long way towards determining Biden’s lasting legacy.

A few weeks ago, I asked Attorney General Garland how he thought history would judge Biden and this administration.

“I’ll leave that to the historians,” he replied.

That, in the end, is all Biden has left.

Israel and Hamas are understood to be making progress but uncertainty remains over key aspects of the potential agreement.

The White House said Biden discussed the “fundamentally changed regional circumstances” following Israel’s ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the weakening of Iran’s power in the region.

Netanyahu’s office said he had updated Biden on instructions he had given to senior negotiators in Doha “in order to advance the release of the hostages”.

During Sunday’s call, which was the first to be publicly announced since October, Biden “stressed the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal”.

It came a day after Netanyahu sent a top Israeli security delegation, including the directors of the Mossad spy agency and Shin Bet security service, to indirect negotiations in Qatar’s capital mediated by Qatari, US and Egyptian officials.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu was meeting members of his cabinet opposed to a ceasefire deal to persuade them not to resign.

And UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy met his Israeli counterpart in Jerusalem to discuss progress on a deal.

On Saturday, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff met the Israeli prime minister amid efforts to try to reach a deal before the president-elect’s inauguration on 20 January.

Trump has previously said that “all hell would break loose” if the hostages were not released before he returned to the White House.

Last Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an agreement was “very close” and that he hoped to “get it over the line” before Trump took office. Any deal would be based on the proposals Biden set out in May, he added.

Despite the apparent heightened activity, a lack of clarity on several key issues – including whether an initial truce will lead to a permanent ceasefire and whether the Israeli military will agree to fully withdrawing from Gaza – remain.

Anshel Pfeffer, Israel correspondent for The Economist, said he was doubtful that a deal would be achieved quickly.

“We’ve been here so many times before,” he told the BBC’s Today Programme.

“There is a bit more room for optimism, but until there is an official announcement or a truce or ceasefire and we start seeing hostages coming out, I’m going to remain sceptical.”

But he added that it was in both Israel and Hamas’s interest to strike a deal before Trump entered office.

“There is a fear [from Hamas] that Trump will somehow give Israel permission to unleash devastation that hasn’t yet been unleashed on Gaza.”

“Both sides feel so invested, they’ve suffered so much.”

The war was triggered by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken back to Gaza as hostages. Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 46,500 people have been killed during the war.

Israel says 94 of the hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 34 are presumed dead, as well as another four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.

Friday’s announcement pertains to individuals from four specific countries: El Salvador, Sudan, Venezuela and Ukraine.

In  each case, the designation of “temporary protected status” (TPS) has been extended for 18 months, based on continuing threats from war, humanitarian crises and natural disasters.

But the extension only applies to individuals already protected under the programme, falling short of calls by immigration advocates to broaden eligibility.

Nevertheless, the announcement is likely to be seen as a parting shot at the incoming administration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to crack down on immigration when he takes office on January 20.

An estimated 1,900 Sudanese, 103,700 Ukrainians, 232,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Venezuelans are eligible for the TPS extension.

They must, however, re-register for the programme to take advantage of the 18-month extension.

Trump has had the TPS programme in his sights since his first term in office, from 2017 to 2021.

Under that administration, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would phase out temporary protected status for immigrants from countries including El Salvador, Haiti and Sudan.

A federal court in 2020 ultimately backed Trump’s authority to end the programme, raising fears that immigrants in the country legally could eventually be expelled.

When Biden succeeded Trump in 2021, he reversed course, increasing the population eligible for temporary protected status and adding countries like Venezuela and Afghanistan to the list.

Human rights groups applauded those changes, calling the protections desperately needed.

Still, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pushed Biden to go further in protecting immigrants fleeing human rights abuses, war and other disasters.

In a 2022 statement, for instance, Emi Maclean, a staff lawyer at the ACLU’s branch in Northern California, pointed out that short-term extensions to TPS ultimately provide little security to immigrants over the long term.

“Today, TPS holders still do not have permanent residence, along with all the civil rights and political equality they deserve,” Maclean said.“Most members of this community have lived in this country for decades.”

Others pointed out that Biden tightened other legal immigration pathways, like the right to apply for asylum. The Biden administration has also not extended TPS protections to other foreign nationals in desperate need, including Palestinians, leading to accusations of a double standard.

In addition, Biden continued several hardline immigration policies he inherited from Trump, including the controversial Title 42 measure, which allowed the US to quickly expel migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border, in the name of public safety.

That measure faced numerous court challenges as a violation of asylum law. Title 42 ultimately expired once the emergency declaration for the COVID-19 pandemic ended in May 2023.

Still, under Biden, the Pew Research Center estimates nearly 1.2 million non-citizen immigrants, out of a total of 21.6 million in the US, became eligible for TPS.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, however, immigration became a topic of fierce debate, with Trump proposing “mass deportation” efforts if he were elected for a second term.

When asked by News Nation in October if he would revoke TPS status for Haitian immigrants, Trump responded with misinformation about the community in Springfield, Ohio, where he previously accused Haitians of eating household pets.“You have to remove the people. We cannot destroy our country,” Trump told News Nation.

“It doesn’t work. It can’t work. It has nothing to do with Haiti or anything else. It doesn’t work. You have to remove the people and you have to bring them back to their own country,” he added. “In my opinion, it’s not legal. It’s not legal for anyone to do.”

Trump ultimately won the 2024 race, and he has signalled he plans to move forward with his immigration crackdown during his first 100 days in office.

In Friday’s announcement, however, Biden’s administration emphasised the dire conditions that made the TPS extensions necessary.

Returning immigrants to Ukraine, for instance, would expose them to the violence of Russia’s ongoing invasion, which has “has led to high numbers of civilian casualties and reports of war crimes”, Homeland Security said in its statement.

In El Salvador, it explained, natural disasters like heavy storms and earthquakes have created perilous living conditions. And in Venezuela, “political and economic crises” under the “inhumane” government of Nicolas Maduro made returning unsafe.

Then there was Sudan, where the US accused paramilitary forces earlier this week of pursuing a campaign of genocide.

“Militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies,” Homeland Security wrote.

“These conditions currently prevent Sudanese nationals and habitual residents from safely returning.”

The measures target more than 200 entities and individuals ranging from traders and officials to insurance companies, as well as hundreds of oil tankers.

In a first since Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, the UK will join the US in directly sanctioning energy companies Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas.

“Taking on Russian oil companies will drain Russia’s war chest – and every ruble we take from Putin’s hands helps save Ukrainian lives,” said Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Some of the measures announced by the US Treasury on Friday will be put into law, meaning the incoming Trump administration will need to involve Congress if it wants to lift them.Washington is also moving to severely limit who can legally purchase Russian energy, and going after what it called Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of vessels that ship oil around the world.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the actions were “ratcheting up the sanctions risk associated with Russia’s oil trade, including shipping and financial facilitation in support of Russia’s oil exports.”

President Joe Biden said Russian leader Vladimir Putin was in “tough shape”, adding that “it’s really important that he not have any breathing room to continue to do the god-awful things he continues to do.”

“It is probable that gas prices [in the United States] could increase as much as three or four cents a gallon,” said the president.

But, he added, the measures were likely to “have profound effect on the growth of the Russian economy”.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, thanked the US for what he called its “bipartisan support”.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, a price cap on oil has been among the key measures designed to curb Russia’s energy exports.

But as Olga Khakova from the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Centre explained, its effectiveness was “diluted” because it was also trying to avoid the volume of Russian oil in the market dropping.

This was due to concerns about the impact reduced supply would have on the global economy.

But experts said the oil market was now in a healthier position.

“US oil production (and exports) are at record levels and rising, and therefore the price impact of taking Russian oil off the market, the objective of today’s sanctions, will be attenuated,” said Daniel Fried, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“The US government has gone after the Russian oil sector in a big way, intending to deal what may turn out to be a body blow,” Fried added.

John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, said while the steps were “excellent”, their implementation would be critical.

“Which means that it is the Trump administration that will determine if these measures do in fact put pressure on the Russian economy,” he said.