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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to apply more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a level 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 you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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