How Donald Trump Secured a Gaza Major Step That Eluded Joe Biden

Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

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

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations 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 maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says 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 the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, 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 President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians 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 resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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