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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree 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. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

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

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

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

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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