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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

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

Trump displayed a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

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

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and he appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal