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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach 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 involved beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

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

The leader displayed a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader 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 leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

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

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings 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 the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal