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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

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

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

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

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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