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At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar appeared like another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the territorial integrity of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be collapsing.

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

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

This marks just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

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

The president's unique style and key alliances 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 at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

Strong Ties That Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has described him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these warm words have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After Israel began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in the summer, the US leader directed US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "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 always more strained.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace 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 Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own political backing, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters provided him more room to manoeuvre.

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

Eight months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, all its key military goals had been accomplished.

Commercial Background Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led Trump to issue an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to end.

The US leader had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter completely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with official trips to the kingdom. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this regional tour but visited the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes an analyst of the a research center.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the demands of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump appears to handle relatively successfully."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in the nation than the prime minister himself was an advantage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal