🔗 Share this article

Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

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

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level 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 US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman 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 combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to do 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.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal