The Way Trump Secured a Gaza Major Step That Escaped Biden

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

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

But, 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 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up 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 abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

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.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

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