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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it proved to be a key moment that has led in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

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

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president urged his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "close embrace strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

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

Ultimately, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him closer to 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 motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has business dealings with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president sat nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and helped them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu himself was an advantage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal