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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump'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 many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence 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 Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," 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 Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

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

Currently Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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