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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, announced by Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

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

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, the president relocated the American diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, the US leader directed American aircraft to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a place of worship, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace 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 support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own political backing, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more room to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its northern border significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Helped Gain Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted the president to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a separate issue entirely, pushing him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as the prime minister personally phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations 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 secured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the deal.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage 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 achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, captured during the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of the territory and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal