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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated 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 position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of support may have allowed the president the leeway to exert 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 halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

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

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude 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 completely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised 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 commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to handle with some success."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal