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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out 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 Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded 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 most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support the nation publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided 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, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to do with some success."

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

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal