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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

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

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain 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, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to handle with some success."

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

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal