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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to act.

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 make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump 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 desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal