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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

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

Trump displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions in private.

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

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties 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 devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to 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 consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do 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 faced, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal