🔗 Share this article

At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents 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 specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated 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 occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

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

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal