🔗 Share this article

At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude 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 closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, 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 he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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