🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal