🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

But if this deal stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal