How Donald Trump Secured a Gaza Strip Breakthrough Which Escaped Biden

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

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

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and pressure 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 American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always 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 nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

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

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, 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, the president was present nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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