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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

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

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle with some success."

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

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

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