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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in 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 destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal