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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

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

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the details of Hamas disarmament, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this agreement 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 crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader 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 support Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in the territory. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

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

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on the city, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes 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 faced, and Trump appears to do with some success."

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

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

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 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