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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and complete Israeli pullout are still to be negotiated.

Yet 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 the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu 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 bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal