🔗 Share this article

Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

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

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, 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 simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians 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 in the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal