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

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

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

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 loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 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