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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence 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 prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century 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 political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

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 war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal