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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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