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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

However, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

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

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

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

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in 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 more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal