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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to support Israel openly 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 Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

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

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal