🔗 Share this article

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

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - 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 breakthrough.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure 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 US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

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

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal