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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

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

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships 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 Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that Trump employed 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 limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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