🔗 Share this article

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula 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 UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal