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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of determination and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

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

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

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

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage 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 achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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