Commendation for President Donald Trump’s accomplishments in Gaza is originating from more than who feel compelled to consider his sentiments.
This includes Hamas, for example.
The militant Palestinian faction initiated the conflict by killing 1,200 individuals within Israel and abducting 250 more on October 7, 2023. Yet, it credits the openly pro-Israel U.S. President with compelling—through “maximum pressure,” according to a senior White House official— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , which came into effect on Friday.
“Without the personal involvement of President Trump in this matter, I do not believe it would have occurred, to have achieved an end to the war,” Dr. Basem Naim, a physician and senior Hamas official, stated to Sky News.“Therefore, yes, we express our gratitude to President Trump and his individual efforts to intervene and to pressure Netanyahu to bring this massacre and widespread killing to a halt.”
Five years after the Abraham Accords—landmark agreements normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab nations—marked the principal diplomatic achievement of his first term, Trump was once more receiving accolades for achieving an unforeseen outcome in Middle Eastern diplomacy. Glimmers of bipartisanship emerged from Capitol Hill. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut described the prospect of a ceasefire as “monumental,” and acknowledged Trump’s contribution to it.
Trump’s success is clear: Weapons fell silent in a conflict ignited by the deaths of 1,200 people in Israel, and which, over the subsequent two years, claimed the lives of 70,000 Palestinians (with only 8,900 of these identified as Hamas fighters, according to reports of data gathered by the Israel Defense Forces through May).
However, the agreement initially fostered positive emotions. Phase One of the multi-stage accord—the only segment thus far signed by Hamas and Israel—mandates the exchange of Israeli hostages for detained Palestinians, and for Israeli forces to withdraw their perimeter. Skeptics concentrate on what remains unresolved—including the crucial specifics of how Gaza will be governed, and the broader query of whether, even with external observers including U.S. officers, Israel can be prevented from resuming military action once its hostages are back.
Nonetheless, analysts are seriously evaluating Trump’s initiative, noting the president’s 20-point while striving to comprehend an approach that diverges so dramatically from how the world has conventionally viewed “the troubled Middle East.”
For 30 years, the resolution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians was believed to be the Oslo Accords, the 1993 agreements intended to establish a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, territory that Israel had conquered in 1967 and subsequently occupied militarily. Yet, Oslo proved no match for Palestinian militancy and Israeli territorial ambitions; the West Bank now hosts more than 500,000 Jewish settlers. In time, negotiations ostensibly aimed at creating a Palestinian state became a platitude that afforded Israel space to “manage the conflict.” That policy was among the many casualties of October 7, 2023.
Diplomacy also seemed to be failing—and not merely in a figurative sense. After pulverizing Gaza to the extent that a nation founded in the shadow of the Holocaust was accused of complicity in genocide, Israel’s military and intelligence apparatus also conducted operations elsewhere—Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Syria. Many of these attacks were in self-defense, but on September 9, Israeli missiles struck , the Persian Gulf kingdom that had been serving as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, and also a key American ally, hosting a huge U.S. air base. The target was Hamas’s chief negotiator for ending the Gaza war.
Yet, this attack would provide the impetus for the peace agreement. Trump, who holds an affinity for the affluent Gulf kingdoms, was also displeased by the assault on a state nominally under U.S. protection. When Netanyahu visited the Oval Office, his host compelled him to to Qatar’s prime minister by phone as all present observed. Hamas officials noted the spectacle, along with Trump’s earlier of a cease-fire between Iran and Israel, which encouraged them to trust his assurances that the peace pact would be enforced. “Though theatrical, he does what he says,” Reuters quoted an unnamed Hamas official as stating.
The Nobel committee may have remained indifferent. But on MSNBC, a guest panel evaluated Trump’s “remarkable” success—a segment that, in a polarized America, Fox News Channel recognized as significant news in itself, and on its website.
