🔗 Share this article

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

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

But if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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