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Initially, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, 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 full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

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

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are against international law, the position under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the leeway to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat the prime minister in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the release of a number of captives.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, Trump urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

The Biden team's "bear hug approach" held that the US had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given Israel a significant latitude in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, the president was present nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

The fact that the president is far better liked in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, he adds.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal