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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

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

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. 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.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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