🔗 Share this article

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

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

These visible shows of support may have given the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and insistence 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 literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

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

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

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

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal