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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

This is a objective that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

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

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes 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 support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination 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 leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

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

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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