The Way Trump Secured a Gaza Strip Breakthrough Which Escaped Biden

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

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that he, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have given the president the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

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

His visits he spent 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. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, 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 region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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