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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, 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 second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

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

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal