🔗 Share this article

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel 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 visible shows of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

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

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal