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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, announced by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

This marks 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 agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain 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. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to influence the government to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries 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 desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

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