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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to exert 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 return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader 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 prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But 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 informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel 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 Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu himself 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 also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to do with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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