How Trump Achieved a Gaza Major Step Which Eluded Joe Biden

At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought 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 remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

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

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal