The Way Trump Secured a Gaza Breakthrough That Escaped Biden

At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step 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 return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel 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.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

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

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump'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 influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

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

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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