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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

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

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller 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 tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to support Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the country'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. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

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

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

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

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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