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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy 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 global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, the US leader directed US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug approach" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact 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 chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

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

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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