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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal