How Donald Trump Achieved a Gaza Major Step That Escaped Biden

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal