🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

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

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

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

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