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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of peace out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had pursued for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

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

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

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

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the US embassy in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have given Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence 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 literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to allow it to influence the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while 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 Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have informed 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 widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have struggled with, and he seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to releasing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal