🔗 Share this article

Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

The president 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 positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv 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.

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

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

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

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal