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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

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

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

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure 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 American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions 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 conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, 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 consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal