How Trump Secured a Gaza Breakthrough That Escaped Biden

Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, 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 a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, 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 devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

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

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal