How Trump Achieved a Gaza Strip Breakthrough Which Eluded Biden

Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel 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 control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

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

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

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

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

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

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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