The Way Trump Secured a Gaza Breakthrough That Eluded Joe Biden

Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

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

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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 positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

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

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires 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 Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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