The Way Donald Trump Achieved a Gaza Major Step That Eluded Joe Biden

Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, 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 all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

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

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