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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

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

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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