The Way Donald Trump Secured a Gaza Breakthrough Which Eluded Joe Biden

At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

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

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

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

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says 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, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

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

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

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