The Way Donald Trump Secured a Gaza Breakthrough That Eluded Joe Biden

At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller 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."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

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

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

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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