🔗 Share this article

Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

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. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

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

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal