🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

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

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

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

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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