🔗 Share this article

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

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says 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."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly 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 not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held 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 initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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