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

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

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

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's 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 initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. 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 struggled with, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

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

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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