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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

However, as with many diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission 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 international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "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 Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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