🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations 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 free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances 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 factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

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

The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

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

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders 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 Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. 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 struggled with, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death 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