The Way Trump Secured a Gaza Major Step That Escaped Biden

At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

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

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza 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 Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

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

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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