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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

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

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

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

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him 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 moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

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

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat close as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"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 lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal