How Donald Trump Achieved a Gaza Breakthrough Which Escaped Joe Biden

Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

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 the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

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

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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