🔗 Share this article

Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared 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 captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

But if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

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

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal