🔗 Share this article

Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

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

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath 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 the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped 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 went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump'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 support, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal