Would the Israel-Hamas deal have happened without Trump’s presidency looming?

Read time: 4 minutes

In brief:

• Israel and Hamas have reached a multi-stage deal which includes a six-week ceasefire, release of 33 hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and increased humanitarian aid to Gaza.
• The deal comes after 15 months of conflict that began with Hamas's October 7th, 2023 attack.
• Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump claim credit for the agreement, with the deal being negotiated by Biden's team but appears to have gained urgency due to Trump's incoming presidency and his strong statements about hostage release before his inauguration.

What’s the story?

A deal has finally been reached between Israel and Hamas after a horrifying 15 months of war.

President Biden, along with Qatar mediators, announced on Wednesday 15 January that both sides had agreed to the terms of a deal that would see hostages released from Hamas captivity and a ceasefire in Gaza.

“It will be a multi stage process,” Emily Maitlis explains.

“A delicate, finely tuned deal in which only a certain number of hostages are released immediately, and that would then be copied by a certain number of Palestinian prisoners, and the deal would move forward in phases.”

On 7 October 7 2023 Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 innocent people hostage across the border into Gaza. The UK-proscribed terrorist organisation still holds 94 people in captivity, with Israeli intelligence believing that only 60 of those taken are still alive.

On October 8th, Israel responded with a massive military campaign in Gaza that has carried on to this day. Palestinian health authorities say the offensive has killed more than 46,000 people and much of Gaza has been turned to rubble, with millions of people displaced.

The first stage of the deal, which will take place in three stages, will see a six week “full and complete ceasefire” and a reported 33 hostages, including women, children and elderly, held by Hamas released. In return for the released hostages, Israel is set to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. There will also be hundreds of lorries with humanitarian aid taken into Gaza each day.

President Biden said the second stage of the deal would be “a permanent end to the war”. The remaining living Israeli hostages would be released in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, 1,000 in total, and there would be a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

The final stage of the deal would involve the reconstruction of Gaza.

A senior Biden administration official said brokering the deal involved “almost unprecedented” levels of cooperation between two administrations.

Both Brett McGurk, the Middle East negotiator for President Joe Biden and Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, attended meetings in Qatar to make the deal happen.

Since it was announced, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have claimed credit for getting it over the line.

Who should take credit for the ceasefire deal, Joe Biden or Donald Trump?

When a journalist asked President Biden who the history books will credit for this ceasefire deal, him or Trump, Biden asked “is that a joke?”

But it’s no joke that Trump has claimed credit for the deal, and it’s no coincidence that it’s happening just days before he’s sworn in as President.

“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

In a press conference Biden said the ceasefire was “developed and negotiated by my team and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration”.

The deal being agreed upon now was first put on the table in May. It’s being signed off days before Donald Trump’s inauguration.

In December the President-elect sent a strong message via Truth Social demanding that Israeli and American hostages be freed.

“If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY,” he said.

“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

So it would be fair to argue that whilst Biden and his team negotiated the deal, the incoming Trump presidency is what gave it urgency.

What’s The News Agents’ take?

“Who gets the credit for it, the political credit, the historic credit, is of a second order to actually just getting the bloody thing agreed ,” Lewis Goodall says.

“But it is, nonetheless, of interest.”

The deal has been a “profoundly important” and “profoundly frustrating” element of Biden’s presidency, Lewis notes, with thousands of hours of diplomatic effort and political capital spent on trying to get this agreement over the line.

Frustrating, he says, because Biden hasn’t been able to “exercise his will” and “bend Netanyahu” in the way that he wants.

And while getting the deal done is priority, whoever does it, Biden did sound as if he was starting to “clock up the political point scoring,” Emily says, when he asked reporters “is that a joke?”

“The implication of it was that he had done the deal back in May, and that now was the time he was finally getting it over the line.

“Others will hear that and say: ‘Well, hang on a second, if you had this deal ready to go in May, why has it taken so long? Why have so many more people died in that period?’”

“I think it's undoubtedly the case that the prospect of Trump coming back and being so hard line on this has made a difference to Netanyahu,” Lewis weighs in.

“So it's a fusion of the effort that the Biden administration has made and the kind of the threat of what Trump might do.”

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