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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack 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 pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

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

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

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

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal