How Donald Trump Secured a Gaza Strip Major Step That Escaped Joe Biden

Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of 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 "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

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

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal