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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

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

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

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

This marks just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this breakthrough.

However, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

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

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Beneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, the Israeli government was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border greatly diminished and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike 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. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. He provided US armed support to Israeli operations in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and assisted them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump appears to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the original 7 October assault, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal