🔗 Share this article

Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world 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.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country 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 international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "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 Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century 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, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue 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 apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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