Just when hopes for peace seemed to be lost, senior U.S. officials led by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton intervened in what would be touted for years as a historic diplomatic achievement. She would later run a campaign touting her strategic abilities to take on President Donald Trump.
In 2014, there was a mediation between the two parties during yet another war by Clinton’s successor, John Kerry, which was also seen as a diplomatic coup at the time. But in the first 72 hours of the ceasefire, Hamas operatives ambushed an IDF patrol clearing tunnels, raising doubts about the peace, with no clear delineation of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. The bodies of Israeli soldiers captured in the attack have been kept by Hamas ever since.
History shows that President Trump’s accomplishments this week are fraught with opportunity and danger for the president in brokering an end to the most devastating war in history.
A permanent ceasefire would cement Trump’s long-sought record as a peacemaker, who has used diplomacy to force ceasefires and reconciliation from several other warring parties. However, the record of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows that consistent presidential attention and involvement may be necessary to ensure peace is maintained.
Hamas and Israel agreed on Wednesday to implement the first phase of President Trump’s proposal, agreeing to exchange all remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, including 1,700 detainees from Gaza and 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israel.
So far, only the first phase has been agreed upon.
The gunfire is expected to subside on Friday, after which Israeli forces are expected to partially withdraw, leaving about half of the Gaza Strip – along the periphery that borders Israel – initially under Israeli control. Once the partial evacuation is complete, a 72-hour clock will begin and the countdown to hostage release will begin.
Achieving this alone would be a significant victory for President Trump. President Trump leveraged the deep ties he built with his Arab partners during his first administration, his political influence among the Israeli right, and his deep ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seal the deal.
The president’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, had been working toward a ceasefire for months, dating back to the presidential transition period about a year ago. He had little success on his own.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who developed the Abraham Accords during Trump’s first term and maintains close ties with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Arab governments, played an unofficial but active role in the recent diplomatic push that helped secure the deal, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
“None of this would have happened without Jared,” the source said.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Trump touted not only the hostages and the cease-fire, but also the historic accomplishments of broader Middle East peace, calling the cease-fire a victory.
“We ended the war in Gaza, and we actually created peace on a much larger basis. And I think it’s going to be a lasting peace. Hopefully, it’s going to be an everlasting peace. Peace in the Middle East,” Trump said.
“We have secured the release of all remaining hostages,” he added. “And they should be released on Monday or Tuesday. It’s a complicated process to get them. I’d rather not say what you have to do to get them. They’re in places you don’t want to go.”
A diplomatic breakthrough appears after Israel carried out a violent attack that undermined the credibility of the Qatari government, an important ally of the United States. Doha has long hosted Hamas’ political leadership, but Qatari leadership believed its relationship with Washington would protect it from Israeli violations of its territory.
U.S. officials said President Trump had sought a deal with Qatar that would guarantee security in exchange for Hamas’s leadership in the hostage trade. Separately, Egypt, where the U.S. government has the second-largest intelligence and logistics capabilities in the Gaza Strip after Israel, has agreed to apply similar pressure, officials said.
“There’s an argument here, which is probably what the Qataris are making against Hamas, which is that they lost this round anyway, and it’s going to take a very long time to rebuild. But the war has to end before rebuilding can begin,” said Elliott Abrams, a veteran diplomat from the Reagan administration, the George W. Bush administration, and the first Trump administration.
“The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday, and he won’t win it,” Abrams said, adding that if the deal fails, “Israelis will tell him, ‘This is a game. They didn’t really accept your plan.'”
“I don’t think he ultimately blames the Israelis for ruining the deal,” Abrams continued. “I think he will blame Hamas.”
