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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in July, including bombing a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing 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 strategy" argued that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him towards 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 maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

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

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal