Gaza Ceasefire Deal Attribution: Who Gets the Credit?

Trump's incoming team injected new pressure into stalled negotiations, but framing eight months of prior diplomacy as irrelevant goes beyond what the evidence shows.

President-elect Trump wrote on Truth Social that "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." ^[1]

The evidence does support that Trump's team contributed meaningfully to breaking the impasse:

Steve Witkoff's Role: Trump's incoming Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Doha and met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Qatar's prime minister, while Biden's envoy Brett McGurk — described as the deal's lead negotiator — worked the remaining details with both sides; the two men stayed in contact as the outgoing and incoming administrations coordinated on the agreement. ^[4]

Witkoff made repeated trips to the region in the weeks that followed and was credited with helping broker and negotiate the ceasefire's implementation. ^[5]

A diplomat briefed on the negotiations said Trump's approach marked, in the diplomat's words, "the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal." ^[3]

A separate analysis noted that, according to Arab officials, Witkoff "swayed Netanyahu more in one meeting than Biden did all year" — while the Biden administration, despite urging restraint, kept supplying weapons to Israel roughly every 36 hours through the same period. ^[12]

However, the claim that the deal "could have only happened" because of Trump's win dismisses the diplomatic groundwork — the three-phase framework, the UN endorsement, and the negotiating channels — that the Biden administration built over the preceding eight months. ^[6]

Multiple foreign policy analysts offered assessments that reject a binary "who deserves credit" framing.

Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said the deal shows "how much more powerful and influential U.S. foreign policy can be when it's bipartisan" and that "both the outgoing and incoming administration deserve credit for this deal, and it would've been far less likely to happen without both pushing for it." ^[1]

Nancy Okail, head of the Center for International Policy, told PBS NewsHour that the breakthrough "ironically shows how effective actual pressure can be in changing Israeli government behavior." ^[1]

Researchers at the Center for International Policy separately argued that the Biden administration had voiced a "mistaken belief that the United States is able to dictate other countries' sovereign decisions" even as it continued arms shipments — a dynamic they say undercut Washington's own leverage during the months the talks were stalled. ^[12]

The expert consensus rejects a winner-take-all framing: the deal required both the diplomatic scaffolding Biden's team built and the harder-edged pressure Trump's incoming team was willing to apply.

The January 2025 ceasefire collapsed on March 18, 2025, when Israel resumed large-scale military operations in Gaza, ending Phase 1 before Phase 2 negotiations could begin.

Before dawn on March 18, 2025, Israel launched what its military called "extensive strikes on terror targets," killing at least 404 Palestinians and wounding 562, according to Gaza's Health Ministry — one of the deadliest days of the war. ^[7][9]

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said the strikes followed Hamas's refusal to accept U.S.-proposed terms for further hostage releases, warning that "if Hamas does not release all the hostages, the gates of hell will open in Gaza." ^[8]

Talks on Phase 2 had stalled since early February, when Israel proposed extending Phase 1 instead of beginning Phase 2 as originally agreed; Hamas rejected the extension and insisted on proceeding to Phase 2. ^[7]

The ceasefire had held for 58 days — from January 19 to March 18, 2025. ^[6]

A new ceasefire, brokered primarily by the Trump administration together with Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, took effect on October 10, 2025, after Trump unveiled a 20-point peace plan on September 29 and announced a breakthrough agreement on October 8. ^[10][11]

The January 2025 Gaza ceasefire demonstrates how complex diplomatic achievements resist simple political narratives. Both the Biden and Trump administrations contributed substantively: Biden's team built and sustained the three-phase framework over eight months, while Trump's incoming envoy applied a more forceful form of pressure that outside observers say helped close the deal. ^[1][3][6]

The political imperative to claim sole credit led both sides to oversimplify. Biden described the deal's structure as matching the "precise contours" of his May proposal, when the two plans in fact diverged on at least the Philadelphi Corridor question that stalled talks for months. ^[2][6] Trump's claim that the deal "could have only happened" because of his election win dismisses that groundwork entirely. ^[1]

Perhaps most importantly, the ceasefire both leaders claimed credit for collapsed after just 58 days, when Israel resumed major military operations on March 18, 2025, killing hundreds of Palestinians — a reminder that the "EPIC" and enduring characterizations both sides used proved premature. ^[6][7][9]

A subsequent ceasefire, negotiated primarily by the Trump administration with Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, took effect on October 10, 2025. ^[10][11]

For citizens evaluating political claims about foreign policy accomplishments, this case illustrates why binary credit attribution often obscures more than it reveals. Both Biden and Trump made claims that contain elements of truth but oversimplify the diplomatic reality; foreign policy analysts who studied the deal, including the Atlantic Council's Jonathan Panikoff, concluded that neither side's claim to sole credit withstands scrutiny. ^[1]