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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty 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 has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet 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.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance 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 Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions 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 Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to 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 turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar 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 region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal