🔗 Share this article

Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

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

That represents a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar 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 support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

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

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal