🔗 Share this article

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

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

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

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

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

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

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

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example 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 strained.

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

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

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

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest 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, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off 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 relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees 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, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal