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

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

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks 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.

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance 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 chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. 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 foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders 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 Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do with some success."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal