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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

But if this deal stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, 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 flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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