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Initially, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

This is a goal that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be negotiated.

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 Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug approach" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state 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 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 regional tour but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump was present close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure the government to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them persuade Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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