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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president was present close as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal