🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed 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 remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

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

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree 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. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing 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.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

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

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil 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 media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

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

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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