The Way Trump Achieved a Gaza Strip Major Step Which Escaped Biden

At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

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

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says 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."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat close as the prime minister 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 key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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