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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another escalation that drove the hope of peace further away.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

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

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

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel in private. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

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

The leader displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Eight months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

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

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and helped them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he seems to handle with some success."

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

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

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured during the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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