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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase 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 defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties 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 Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia 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 the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

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

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death 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