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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 prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

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

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, 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."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

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

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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