🔗 Share this article

Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

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

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike 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. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal