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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

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

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal