🔗 Share this article

Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks 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 Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

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

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel 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.

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

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure 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 the prime minister. The war had to end.

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

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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