🔗 Share this article

Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal 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 Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing 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 rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman 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 struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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