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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

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

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites 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. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, 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 significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

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

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom 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 close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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