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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

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

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas 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 simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets 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. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister himself called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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