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Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

However, it turned out to be a pivotal event that culminated in a agreement, declared by Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

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

This marks just the first step towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout remain to be worked out.

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

The president's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this breakthrough.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

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

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered American aircraft to target the Iran's atomic sites with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a Christian church, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader 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 American president literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

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

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

Beneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight 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.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. The war had to end.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, he also stopped in Doha and the UAE capital.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader gave approval on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's relationship with his counterpart gave him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them persuade Hamas to commit to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the demands of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have faced, and he appears to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal