🔗 Share this article

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

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

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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