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

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

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

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

But, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in the summer, Trump directed American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have given the president the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background 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 Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing 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 turning point which galvanised the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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