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At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

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

This is a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden previously, had pursued for nearly two years.

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

But if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

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

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump directed US bombers to target the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of support may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in return for the release of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace the nation publicly in order to allow it to influence the nation's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's decades-long of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Each move the leader took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza devastated, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. But an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on the city, the president was present close as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

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

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal