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

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

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

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

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

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no greater ally, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "most supportive friend in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

After Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran in the summer, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have given the president the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, even hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump exhibited a degree of determination and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to 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."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more strained.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's decades-long of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

A number of Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties 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 capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as the prime minister himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to reach an agreement, his history with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a challenge that lot of previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that he employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

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

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