🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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