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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this deal holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed 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 do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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