The Way Donald Trump Secured a Gaza Strip Breakthrough Which Eluded Joe Biden

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still 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 distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump 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 Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president'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 endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

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

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to 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, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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