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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree 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 literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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