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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

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

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

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the United States had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during 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 the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received 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 comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

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