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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step 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 agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

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

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. 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 stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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