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

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

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

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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