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At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Qatar seemed like another escalation that drove the prospect of peace out of reach.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

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

It is just the initial phase towards a lasting resolution, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that escaped Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors involved beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties That Biden Never Had

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, the president relocated the US embassy in the country from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

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

Those public demonstrations of backing may have allowed Trump the room to exert more influence on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the release of a number of captives.

After Israel launched strikes against Syria's military in July, even bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of will and insistence 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 leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" argued that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to act.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Support from Arab States

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led the president to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several administration figures have informed the press that this was a turning point which motivated the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

The leader's strong connections with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, 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 earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, says Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where he received repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present close as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister gave approval on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed influence with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," 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 earlier administrations have faced, and he appears to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister himself was leverage that he used to his benefit, the expert continues.

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October assault, which caused the death of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

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