🔗 Share this article

Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These 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 negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing 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 Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal