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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace out of reach.

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

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

But if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "most supportive friend in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his initial time in office, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against Iran in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to exert more influence on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support Israel openly in order to enable it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

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. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

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

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, 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 helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president was present nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's relationship with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, 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 Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has consented to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal