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

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

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

These public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

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

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal