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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance 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 Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout 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 the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off 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 Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

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

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

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

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal