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At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of peace out of reach.

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

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

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also elements at play beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy 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 bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the a think tank. "There is no example of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace approach" argued that the United States had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took risked fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Commercial Background Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in Doha, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised 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 the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as Netanyahu himself called the Qatari leadership to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the demands of the warring sides has been a challenge that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in the nation than Netanyahu personally was an advantage that Trump used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal