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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the view under global norms.

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

These visible shows of support may have allowed the president the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination 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 they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. He provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

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

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where he received consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to do with some success."

The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister personally was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal