The Way Trump Secured a Gaza Breakthrough Which Eluded Biden

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

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

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails 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 resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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