🔗 Share this article

At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve 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 appears to do with some success."

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

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal