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

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and threatened widening the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that Trump, and Joe Biden before him, had pursued for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

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

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

Trump likes to say that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in the summer, Trump ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These public demonstrations of backing may have allowed the president the room to apply more pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even bombing a Christian church, Trump urged Netanyahu to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "bear hug strategy" held that the US had to embrace the nation openly in order to enable it to influence the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the Gaza War. Every step the leader took endangered fracturing his own political backing, whereas his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight 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 accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to deliver an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent US armed support to Israel's campaign in the neighboring country. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began each of his administrations with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

The time devoted in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many earlier administrations have faced, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that he employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has committed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

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