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Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas delegation in Qatar seemed like another intensification that drove the prospect of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under international law.

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

Those visible shows of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

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

Trump displayed a degree of will and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

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

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

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

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal