🔗 Share this article

Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told the press 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 Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His 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 helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government 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 developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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