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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved 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 Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

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

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

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

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more strained.

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

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

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. 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.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership 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 backing of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal