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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire out of reach.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded 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 many diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that the nation has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the United States had to embrace Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered fracturing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to apply maximum pressure 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. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that he used to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal