The Way Trump Secured a Gaza Strip Major Step Which Eluded Joe Biden

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always 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 influence the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed 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 given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself called 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 also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal